Quantification of Ebola virus replication kinetics in vitro



Liao, Laura E, Carruthers, Jonathan, Smither, Sophie J, Weller, Simon A, Williamson, Diane, Laws, Thomas R, Garcia-Dorival, Isabel ORCID: 0000-0002-5654-5662, Hiscox, Julian ORCID: 0000-0002-6582-0275, Holder, Benjamin P, Beauchemin, Catherine AA
et al (show 5 more authors) (2020) Quantification of Ebola virus replication kinetics in vitro. PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY, 16 (11). e1008375-.

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Abstract

Mathematical modelling has successfully been used to provide quantitative descriptions of many viral infections, but for the Ebola virus, which requires biosafety level 4 facilities for experimentation, modelling can play a crucial role. Ebola virus modelling efforts have primarily focused on in vivo virus kinetics, e.g., in animal models, to aid the development of antivirals and vaccines. But, thus far, these studies have not yielded a detailed specification of the infection cycle, which could provide a foundational description of the virus kinetics and thus a deeper understanding of their clinical manifestation. Here, we obtain a diverse experimental data set of the Ebola virus infection in vitro, and then make use of Bayesian inference methods to fully identify parameters in a mathematical model of the infection. Our results provide insights into the distribution of time an infected cell spends in the eclipse phase (the period between infection and the start of virus production), as well as the rate at which infectious virions lose infectivity. We suggest how these results can be used in future models to describe co-infection with defective interfering particles, which are an emerging alternative therapeutic.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: CL4 Virology Team, Vero Cells, Animals, Humans, Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola, Viral Load, Monte Carlo Method, Bayes Theorem, Markov Chains, Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction, Computational Biology, Virus Replication, Kinetics, Models, Biological, Computer Simulation, Ebolavirus, In Vitro Techniques, Host Microbial Interactions, Chlorocebus aethiops
Divisions: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 09 Jun 2021 10:12
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 22:35
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008375
Open Access URL: http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008375
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3125708