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. 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.

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References

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