Fig. 6

Loss of DAP12 compromises ZIKV infectivity and spermatozoa function in ZIKV-damaged testicular tissues. a Western blot analysis of DAP12 protein expressed in various testicular tissues of male stat1^−/−, dap12^−/−, or stat1^−/−dap12^−/− mice infected with ZIKV at 7 dpi. Spleen tissues with known high DAP12 expression were collected from C57BL/6 mice as a positive control. b Survival (monitored daily) in male mutant or C57BL/6 mice infected with ZIKV via mosquito. c Immunohistochemical staining (with anti-4G2) of tissues from the testes and epididymis (caput, corpus, and cauda) collected from ZIKV-infected mice (n ≥ 3) at 7 dpi and from uninfected C57BL/6 mice (n = 3) as controls. Scale bars: 100 µm. Quantitative data show the percentage of ZIKV-infected area in different tissues. Sperm count for epididymis tissues (d) and sperm motility (e) in mutant or C57BL/6 mice with ZIKV infection. For b–e, stat1^−/−, dap12^−/−, or stat1^−/−dap12^−/− mutant mice were used. At least three randomly selected fields of view were analyzed for each group. Quantitative data are presented as mean ± SD. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01