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The laboratory scientists, working in Brazil, were able to infect the more prevalent species, known as Culex quinquefasciatus, with the virus, which is suspected of causing birth defects in Latin America and the Caribbean. The virus selectively infects cells that form the brain’s cortex, or outer layer, making them more likely to die and less likely to divide normally and make new brain cells.
The research has yet to be published in a scientific journal or reviewed by scientific peers elsewhere. While Friday’s study doesn’t definitively prove that the disease causes microcephaly, it strengthens the link between the two by showing cells from the brain’s cortex are vulnerable to attack from the virus, according to Guo-li Ming, a Johns Hopkins neurologist and one of the lead authors.
Wen said their findings are a “first step” that provide an “entrance point” to seeking further answers on ways to combat the Zika virus and, hopefully, microcephaly.
Those not stricken with the virus all showed normal results.
Bruce Aylward, the WHO’s executive director for outbreaks and health emergencies, says a study from French Polynesia presents the most compelling evidence to date linking Guillain-Barre Syndrome with the Zika virus.
WASHINGTON (AP) Researchers say the Zika virus may be linked to a wider variety of “grave outcomes” for developing babies than previously reported and that threats can come at any stage of pregnancy.
What they found was illuminating, and also “extremely concerning”, they wrote.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting 153 travel-related Zika cases in the United States. “We can associate that with weeks of gestation, so we can know if there are any malformations, what time they happened – we can associate them with a first trimester, second trimester and third trimester infection”. And Song is investigating why the virus is going after neural progenitor cells as opposed to other cell types. Cortical neural progenitor cells in turn give rise to immature neurons for the cortex.
But the study did reveal the extent to which Zika may be damaging the developing brain’s cells.
Tang said he is collaborating with other labs to look for substances that will block Zika infection of cells.
The discovery of Zika in the urine suggests it may be a better place to test than in blood. Furthermore, the genes needed to fight viruses had not been switched on, which is highly unusual, Tang adds.
Other questions include: Why aren’t adults affected the same way as fetuses?
Researchers did not take the brain cells from embryos; they created them from stem cells obtained from other sources.
A Missouri man who caught the Zika virus while traveling in Haiti marks the state’s first case, health officials said Friday. Since then, small outbreaks have appeared in Asia and Africa, but did not appear to have any long-term effects.
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Public health authorities had cited Aedes aegypti as the mosquito o responsible for spreading Zika, with another species of the same genus, Aedes albopictus, also transmitting the virus in smaller numbers.
