Mice study links virus with brain abnormality
Print Edition
CHINESE scientists have found the first direct evidence linking the Zika virus to microcephaly in mice experiments.
Microcephaly is a medical condition in which abnormal brain development of a fetus or infant results in a head that is smaller than normal.
A dramatic rise in microcephaly cases among newborns was discovered in Brazil and elsewhere as the Zika virus spread wildly in those regions. In most cases, mothers of babies with microcephaly had been infected with the Zika virus.
Scientists had suspected a close link between Zika infection and microcephaly, but didn’t have any direct proof to confirm.
The new discovery, which was announced on Wednesday, was made in a collaborative research project conducted by teams led by Xu Zhiheng at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Qin Chengfeng with the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology under the Academy of Military Medical Sciences.
Scientists injected the Zika virus strain, which was isolated from a Chinese patient, into fetal mouse brains.
The Zika virus replicated quickly in the brains of the fetal mice and infected neural stem cells, causing abnormal proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells and neuron death, according to Xu.
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