The four serotypes of dengue virus (DENV1 to DENV4) cause extensive morbidity and mortality. A major obstacle to studying disease pathogenesis and developing therapies has been the lack of a small-animal model. We previously reported isolation of a DENV2 strain, obtained by passaging a clinical isolate between mosquito cells and mice, that caused severe DENV disease in mice and contained multiple mutations, including many in domain II of the envelope (E) protein. Here, we describe a recombinant virus, differing from the non-mouse-passaged virus by two mutations in the E protein, that induces vascular leakage and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-␣)-mediated lethality, while the non-mouse-passaged virus causes paralysis. This recombinant virus has a weaker affinity for heparan sulfate, resulting in an increased serum half-life, higher systemic viral loads, and high levels of TNF-␣ in the serum of infected mice. These results exemplify the role of the E protein in modulating virion clearance and connect the effect of clearance on the systemic viral loads responsible for severe disease manifestations.The four serotypes of dengue virus (DENV1 to DENV4) are the etiologic agents of dengue fever (DF) and dengue hemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome (DHF/DSS). DF is an acute, self-limited febrile illness. The more life-threatening DHF/DSS is characterized by a transient increase in vascular permeability, resulting in the leakage of plasma to the interstitium. DENV is transmitted to humans primarily by the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. It belongs to the Flaviviridae family and is related to the viruses that cause yellow fever (YFV), hepatitis C, and the West Nile (WNV), Japanese (JEV), and St. Louis encephalitides (5). DENV is an enveloped virus with a single-stranded, 10.7-kb, positive-sense RNA genome that is translated as a single polyprotein and cleaved into three structural proteins (C, prM/M, and E) and seven nonstructural (NS) proteins (NS1, NS2A, NS2B, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, and NS5) by both viral and host proteases. At present, no effective antiviral therapy or vaccine exists. An estimated 2.5 billion people are at risk for DENV infection worldwide, and 50 million new cases of DF, 250,000 to 500,000 cases of DHF/DSS, and 25,000 deaths are reported per year (14,16).Despite the significant public health threat posed by DENV, the mechanisms of viral pathogenesis remain unclear. To better understand DENV disease, several mouse models have been developed. Mouse models of DENV infection include (i) intracerebral injection of suckling mice (50); (ii) mouse brainadapted DENV strains that rapidly induce encephalitis (12); (iii) A/J (20, 51) and AG129 (26, 52) mice that are infected with a high dose of a non-mouse-adapted DENV strain; (iv) chimeric SCID mice that are transplanted with either human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (58); CD34 ϩ cord blood cells (2), erythroleukemic K562 cells (36), or HepG2 hepatocarcinoma cells (1); and (v) chimeric RAG2 Ϫ/Ϫ ␥ c Ϫ/Ϫ mice transplanted with human fetal liver-de...