Zika virus exposure in a mouse model can infect adult neural stem cells in the brain, leading to cell death and reduced proliferation.CELL STEM CELL, H. LI ET AL.Microcephaly and associated birth defects in babies born to mothers infected with the virus during pregnancy is considered the most serious consequence of the ongoing Zika outbreak. However, the increasing incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome and other neuropathologies linked to the mosquito-borne and sexually transmissible pathogen indicate that Zika virus infection represents a risk to adults, as well.
A number of recent studies have investigated how Zika virus infects fetal brain cells. Working in mice, scientists at Rockefeller University in New York City and their colleagues elsewhere have now examined how Zika virus infection impacts adult brain cells. As it turns out, as it has for fetal neural progenitor cells, Zika virus has tropism for adult proliferative neural progenitor cells and immature neurons. The team’s results were published today (August 18) in Cell Stem Cell.
Zika virus infection can also induce apoptosis of adult neural progenitor cells in the anterior subventricular and subgranular zones of the mouse brain, the researchers reported.
The results of this mouse study show, “for the first time, that [Zika virus] can affect adult neurogenesis by increasing cell death ...
