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Multiple Choice

Presumably, the earliest infected cells (target cells) for Filovirus (Ebola and Marburg) infections are?

The main idea here is where filoviruses first begin their replication and how that drives disease. Ebola and Marburg viruses preferentially infect cells of the innate immune system early on—primarily macrophages and dendritic cells. When these cells become infected, the virus replicates efficiently and they release a flood of cytokines and chemokines, which kickstarts the systemic inflammatory response and helps the virus spread to other tissues. Lymphocytes, while they undergo extensive dysfunction and death during infection, are not the initial productive targets of replication; they are more affected as a downstream consequence of the emergency inflammatory environment. Epithelial and neuronal cells are involved later in disease pathology, contributing to tissue damage and symptoms, but they are not the first cells infected. So the earliest infected cells are macrophages and dendritic cells, with lymphocyte depletion occurring as a secondary effect rather than from primary infection of those lymphocytes.

The main idea here is where filoviruses first begin their replication and how that drives disease. Ebola and Marburg viruses preferentially infect cells of the innate immune system early on—primarily macrophages and dendritic cells. When these cells become infected, the virus replicates efficiently and they release a flood of cytokines and chemokines, which kickstarts the systemic inflammatory response and helps the virus spread to other tissues. Lymphocytes, while they undergo extensive dysfunction and death during infection, are not the initial productive targets of replication; they are more affected as a downstream consequence of the emergency inflammatory environment. Epithelial and neuronal cells are involved later in disease pathology, contributing to tissue damage and symptoms, but they are not the first cells infected. So the earliest infected cells are macrophages and dendritic cells, with lymphocyte depletion occurring as a secondary effect rather than from primary infection of those lymphocytes.