tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
A multidisciplinary team from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has uncovered the mechanisms that the Zika virus uses to alter brain development. These findings are detailed in Stem Cell Reports.
There are currently 70 countries and territories reporting active Zika transmission, according to the World Health Organization. While a Zika infection typically results in mild or symptom-free infections in healthy adults and children, the risk of microcephaly in the developing fetus is an alarming consequence that has created a worldwide health threat.
Babies with microcephaly can have a wide array of problems including a small brain and head, developmental delays, seizures, vision, and hearing loss and feeding difficulty. Scientists are trying to determine how a Zika infection triggers these defects.
Since a normal brain develops from simple cells called stem cells that are able to develop into any one of various kinds of cells, the UTMB team deduced that microcephaly is most likely linked with abnormal function of these cells.
There are two main lineages of the virus, African and Asian. Recently, the UTMB team found that only the Asian lineage has been linked with microcephaly. So, what is it about this particular form of the virus that inflicts such damage?
http://www.labmanager.com/news/2017/02/scientists-uncover-how-zika-virus-causes-microcephaly
There are currently 70 countries and territories reporting active Zika transmission, according to the World Health Organization. While a Zika infection typically results in mild or symptom-free infections in healthy adults and children, the risk of microcephaly in the developing fetus is an alarming consequence that has created a worldwide health threat.
Babies with microcephaly can have a wide array of problems including a small brain and head, developmental delays, seizures, vision, and hearing loss and feeding difficulty. Scientists are trying to determine how a Zika infection triggers these defects.
Since a normal brain develops from simple cells called stem cells that are able to develop into any one of various kinds of cells, the UTMB team deduced that microcephaly is most likely linked with abnormal function of these cells.
There are two main lineages of the virus, African and Asian. Recently, the UTMB team found that only the Asian lineage has been linked with microcephaly. So, what is it about this particular form of the virus that inflicts such damage?
http://www.labmanager.com/news/2017/02/scientists-uncover-how-zika-virus-causes-microcephaly