Elucidating variations in the nucleotide sequence of Ebola virus associated with increasing pathogenicity

Table 1 The titre of EBOV in the spleens isolated from four guinea pigs taken from each passage increased, and then reached a plateau indicating that the virus had become adapted to grow in the guinea pig model

Passage number	Virus titre from spleen preparation (TCID ₅₀)	Total PF reads	Reads mapping to the EBOV genome	Reads mapping to the Ebola genome (%)	Mortality (number of deaths/number challenged) (%)
1	2.1 × 10⁴/spleen	2,429,959	4,298	0.18	0% (0/4)
2	3.0 × 10⁷/spleen	3,505,156	5,655	0.16	50% (2/4)
3	5.8 × 10⁷/spleen	3,453,615	9,736	0.28	0% (0/4)
4	6.1 × 10⁷/spleen	2,696,262	13,783	0.51	25% (1/4)
5	6.1 × 10⁷/spleen	3,264,859	12,060	0.37	75% (3/4)

The material prepared from the spleens was combined for subsequent infection of the next passage group. Note that the mortality associated with passage two is likely to be associated with the amount of spleen material used for inoculation (see Results and Discussion).

ISSN: 1474-760X