Flaviviruses are a major family of pathogens and cause dangerous arthropod-borne diseases such as dengue fever (DENV), Japanese encephalitis (JEV), yellow fever (YFV), zika (ZIKV) and others.

DENV infects more than 50 million people worldwide every year, causing a range of clinical syndromes from mild febrile illness to Dengue hemorrhagic fever/shock syndrome (DHF/DSS). Development of effective vaccines and therapeutics against DENV is becoming a high priority for governments and the pharmaceutical industry.

Japanese encephalitis results in high fevers and can damage the nervous system. Yellow fever is endemic in tropical regions and has a high mortality rate.

In vitro screens such as cytopathic effect (CPE), neutralization, and yield-reduction assays are used to test the activity of candidate compounds against flaviviruses. Typically, Vero cells are used for these cell-based assays. Other cell lines can be evaluated upon request.

• Vero cells infected and viral plaques detected using a standard immunoplaque assay

• K562 cell infected and percentage of DENV-positive cells analyzed by flow cytometry