Zika virus crosses the placenta and causes microcephaly in mice

I am convinced that Zika virus causes microcephaly in humans, but it would be valuable to have an animal model to study how the virus crosses the placenta and damages the fetus. As with many questions about Zika virus, answers are coming very rapidly, and three different groups have now provided substantial insight into this problem. When a Samoan isolate of Zika virus was injected into the brain of embryonic day 13.5 mice, the virus replicated mainly in neural progenitor cells, but also in many other brain cells (link to paper). At 5 days after infection, brain size was markedly reduced compared with uninfected littermates. Infection of neural progenitor cells disrupted their normal differentiation program which leads to the production of mature neurons. Gene expression profiling of infected brains showed an increase in the production of cytokines, suggesting that these proteins might play a role in disease development. The expression of genes that have been previously associated with microcephaly was reduced. The authors conclude that “these effects are likely to account for microcephaly in human fetuses or newborn babies.” In a different approach (link to paper), pregnant mice (not fetuses as in the previous study) were infected with a Brazilian Zika virus strain, and newborns were studied. Zika virus was detected in many tissues of newborns, especially in brain. Newborn mice displayed overall reduced growth, cortical malformations, and reduced cortical cell...
Source: virology blog - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Basic virology Information brain organic microcephaly mouse model neural progenitor cell placenta trophoblast viral virus viruses zika virus Source Type: blogs