Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025:2936:111-116.
doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-4587-1_12.

Quantification of Tick-Borne Flaviviruses Using Focus Forming Assays

Allen T Esterly  1 , Erin S Reynolds  2   3   4 , Saravanan Thangamani  5   6
Affiliations

Quantification of Tick-Borne Flaviviruses Using Focus Forming Assays

Allen T Esterly et al. Methods Mol Biol. 2025.

Abstract

Tick-borne flaviviruses, such as tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV), Omsk hemorrhagic fever virus (OHFV), and Powassan virus (POWV), pose significant threats to human health.POWV is an emerging arbovirus and is the only member of the tick-borne encephalitis serogroup causing public health concern in North America, specifically in the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada (Hermance and Thangamani, Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis 17(7):453-462, 2017; Hassett and Thangamani, Microorganisms 9(11):2317, 2021). POWV lineages currently described, POWV lineage I, referred to as POWV, and POWV lineage II, referred to as Deer tick virus (DTV), are genetically similar and cause similar neurotropic disease in humans during spillover infections. Accurate quantification of POWV or DTV is critical to studying the basic biology, pathogenesis, and transmission physiology of these viruses. Herein, we describe our process to quantify POWV or DTV in a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) setting using a repeatable methodology.

Keywords: Deer tick virus; Powassan virus; Tick-borne disease; Tick-borne virus; Viral quantification.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Ammerman NC, Beier-Sexton M, Azad AF (2008) Growth and maintenance of Vero cell lines. Curr Protoc Microbiol 11(1):1–7. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780471729259.mca04es11 - DOI
    1. Stone ET, Hirsch AJ, Smith JL, Brien JD, Pinto AK (2022) Titration and neutralizing antibody quantification by focus forming assay for Powassan virus. STAR Protoc 3(3):101473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101473 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Hermance ME, Thangamani S (2017) Powassan virus: an emerging arbovirus of public health concern in North America. Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis 17(7):453–462. https://doi.org/10.1089/vbz.2017.2110 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Hassett EM, Thangamani S (2021) Ecology of Powassan virus in the United States. Microorganisms 9(11):2317. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9112317 - DOI - PubMed - PMC

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources