Three Colombian newborns could be the country’s first group of children with Zika virus-linked brain abnormalities – a sign of what’s to come as pregnant Colombian women infected with the virus begin to give birth.
Advertisement
Professor of biological science Hengli Tang at The Florida State University said: “We’re trying to fill the knowledge gap between infection and the neurological defects”.
The findings are the first concrete evidence of a link between the mosquito-borne virus and microcephaly, which until now had been circumstantial, said Guo-li Ming, a professor of neurology at The Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering, and a co-leader of the research. “What we show is that the Zika virus infects neuronal cells in dish that are counterparts to those that form the cortex during human brain development”.
The next step for them is to develop mini-brain models from the stem cells and determine what the Zika virus will do to the neural tissue and also start the screening for possible therapeutic molecules.
All of Florida’s 48 confirmed Zika infections were acquired by travelers outside the country, state health officials said.
“There are case reports for the Zika virus where they show that certain brain areas appear to have developed normally, but it is mostly the cortical structures that are missing”. But the virus has been suspected of causing a serious birth defect called microcephaly in which babies are born with abnormally small heads.
Detailed information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the Zika virus can be found here. Zika virus has been spreading through the Americas since 2015.
The study was published today in the academic journal Cell Stem Cell.
It’s also providing the strongest evidence yet of microcephaly in Zika virus patients.
Scientists have already observed traces of the virus in brains of fetuses that died including the placentas of infected women.
“Mosquito-borne transmission of Zika is really the most common way the virus spreads”, said Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, CDC spokesperson. However, no abnormalities were found in the fetuses of women without Zika infections, the study noted.
The research took a remarkably quick path. Because of the public health implications, researchers worldwide have been working around the clock to study how the virus works and its potential targets.
Advertisement
Nielsen says their study and others like it could help eliminate theories that the pesticides used against mosquitoes (and not the virus itself) are the culprit.
