Genotype-Driven Sensitivity in Mice to Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus Correlates with Differential Host Responses in Peripheral Macrophages and Brain

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is the most common tick-borne viral infection in Eurasia, with outcomes ranging from asymptomatic to fatal encephalitis. While the reasons for this variability are unclear, host genetics likely plays a role. Our previous research showed that BALB/c mice have intermediate susceptibility to TBE virus (TBEV), STS mice are highly resistant, and the recombinant congenic strain CcS-11, which has 12.5% of the STS genome on the BALB/c background, is more susceptible than the BALB/c. In this study, we used these three mouse strains to investigate the host response to TBEV infection in both peripheral macrophages, one of the initial target cell populations, and in the brain, the terminal target organ for the virus. We analyzed 16 different RNA samples using Affymetrix Mouse gene 1.0 ST arrays extracted from virus-infected and mock-infected mouse brain homogenates. For each mouse strain, RNA from 3 virus-infected mice and 2 or 3 mock-infected mice was examined on individual microarrays.