Semen exosomes inhibit the infection of ZIKV on monocytes derived dendritic cells

ANA LUZ PALETA; LUCIANA CASTILLO; AGUSTO VARESE; FACUNDO DI DIEGO GARCIA

MAR DEL PLATA

Congreso; Congreso SAI-SAIC-SAFIS; 2018

SAI

The last outbreak of zika virus in Brazil raised the alarm when it was linked to a dramatic increase in the number of children born with microcephaly. Recent reports showed that this virus can also be transmitted by sexual intercourse. Different studies had established that semen alters the vaginal mucosa and its immunological properties. Exosomes are small extracellular vesicles present in all the body fluids, semen included, that mediate intercellular signaling. We aim to elucidate the effect exerted by semen exosomes (SE) over monocyte derived dendritic cells (moDCs) challenged with zika virus. To this end we first purified seminal exosomes form healthy donors using size exclusion chromatography. moDCs were obtained by incubating human monocytes with GM-CSF and IL-4 for 5 days. We infected the moDCs in presence or absence of SE (200ug/ml) and let the infection progress for 48 hs. We measured the number of virions realeased, by UFP, and the viral load contained inside the cells by qPCR. In both cases we saw that the presence of SE abrogated the infection (p