Rajesh Jacob, McMaster University

Rajesh Abraham Jacob1, Samira Mubareka2, Arinjay Banerjee3, and Karen Mossman1 1Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton. 2Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto. 3Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, Saskatoon.

Suppressing & Conquering

The recent outbreak caused by monkeypox virus (MPXV) poses a global threat. Understanding the cellular susceptibility and permissiveness of MPXV is key to controlling the virus transmission as the reservoir is not fully established. The susceptibility and permissiveness of non-human mammals to clade IIb MPXV was evaluated in-cellulo. Additionally, the sensitivity of MPXV to type I interferon (IFN) and poly(I:C) was assessed. Lung fibroblast cells from rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) exhibited high permissiveness to MPXV even at low titers corroborating previous observations that young rabbits are susceptible to the virus. Additionally, lung fibroblast cells from Chinese hamsters (Cricetulus griseus) are permissive to MPXV albeit at higher titers. Although bats are not generally considered natural reservoir for MPXV, our data indicate that kidney epithelial cells from two bat species - big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) and the black flying fox (Pteropus alecto) are permissive to the virus with variations in their innate ability to replicate and produce high titer virus. While we established that MPXV has a type I IFN resistant phenotype in human and bat cells, both species elicited a dose-dependent restriction of virus replication by poly(I:C) at lower titers. In summary, this study has identified new species that are susceptible and/or permissive to MPXV and have elucidated the role of the type I IFN response in preventing transmission.