Amarilla AA, Santos-Junior NN, Figueiredo ML, Luiz JPM, Fumagalli MJ, Colón DF, Lippi V, Alfonso HL, Lima-Junior DS, Trabuco AC, Spinieli RL, Desidera AC, Leite-Panissi CRA, Lauretti F, Mendoza SES, Silva CLA, Rego EM, Galvao-Lima LJ, Bassi GS, Penharvel Martíns SLB, Manrique WG, Alves-Filho JC, Cunha FQ, Peng NYG, Modhiran N, Setoh YX, Khromykh AA, Figueiredo LTM, and Aquino VH
Rocio virus (ROCV) is a highly neuropathogenic mosquito-transmitted flavivirus responsible for an unprecedented outbreak of human encephalitis during 1975-1976 in Sao Paulo State, Brazil. Previous studies have shown an increased number of inflammatory macrophages in the central nervous system (CNS) of ROCV-infected mice, implying a role for macrophages in the pathogenesis of ROCV. Here, we show that ROCV infection results in increased expression of CCL2 in the blood and in infiltration of macrophages into the brain. Moreover, we show, using CCR2 knockout mice, that CCR2 expression is essential for macrophage infiltration in the brain during ROCV infection and that the lack of CCR2 results in increased disease severity and mortality. Thus, our findings show the protective role of CCR2-mediated infiltration of macrophages in the brain during ROCV infection., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)