Visualization of Zika Virus Infection via a Light-Initiated Bio-Orthogonal Cycloaddition Labeling Strategy

Judun Zheng; Rui Yue; Ronghua Yang; Qikang Wu; Yunxia Wu; Mingxing Huang; Xu Chen; Weiqiang Lin; Jialin Huang; Xiaodong Chen; Yideng Jiang; Bin Yang; Yuhui Liao

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2022.940511

Visualization of Zika Virus Infection via a Light-Initiated Bio-Orthogonal Cycloaddition Labeling Strategy

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2022 Jul 8:10:940511. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.940511. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Judun Zheng¹, Rui Yue¹, Ronghua Yang², Qikang Wu^{3

4}, Yunxia Wu^{3

4}, Mingxing Huang⁵, Xu Chen⁵, Weiqiang Lin¹, Jialin Huang¹, Xiaodong Chen^{3

4}, Yideng Jiang⁶, Bin Yang¹, Yuhui Liao^{1

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Molecular Diagnosis and Treatment Center for Infectious Diseases, Dermatology Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
² Department of Burn and Plastic Surgery, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China.
³ Department of Clinical Laboratory, The First People's Hospital of Foshan, Foshan, China.
⁴ Department of Burn Surgery & Department of Rheumatology, The First People's Hospital of Foshan, Foshan, China.
⁵ Department of Infectious Disease, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China.
⁶ NHC Key Laboratory of Metabolic Cardiovascular Diseases Research, Ningxia Key Laboratory of Vascular Injury and Repair Research, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, China.

Abstract

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a re-emerging flavivirus that leads to devastating consequences for fetal development. It is crucial to visualize the pathogenicity activities of ZIKV ranging from infection pathways to immunity processes, but the accurate labeling of ZIKV remains challenging due to the lack of a reliable labeling technique. We introduce the photo-activated bio-orthogonal cycloaddition to construct a fluorogenic probe for the labeling and visualizing of ZIKV. Via a simple UV photoirradiation, the fluorogenic probes could be effectively labeled on the ZIKV. We demonstrated that it can be used for investigating the interaction between ZIKV and diverse cells and avoiding the autofluorescence phenomenon in traditional immunofluorescence assay. Thus, this bioorthogonal-enabled labeling strategy can serve as a promising approach to monitor and understand the interaction between the ZIKV and host cells.

Keywords: Zika virus; fluorescent probe; light-initiated cycloaddition; phenanthrenequinone; quantum dots (DQs).