Varanasi: As the outbreak of Zika virus in Kanpur has raised an alarm, researchers from the Molecular Biology Unit of the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University (IMS-BHU) have reported a significant discovery on Zika virus pathogenesis, which This, as they claim, will be helpful in understanding the molecular pathogenesis of the virus and in the development of therapeutics.
Head of the Molecular Biology Unit, Prof. Sunit K. “The study is published in September in an international peer-reviewed journal ‘Molecular Neurobiology’,” Singh said. His research group made significant contributions to the field of molecular virology.
According to him, Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne virus, transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, the same mosquito that causes dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever viruses.
Zika virus can be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy, causing microcephaly (smaller than normal head size) and other congenital malformations in the infant, collectively known as congenital Zika syndrome, while symptoms in adults are mild. – Have fever. , headache, conjunctivitis, joint pain and body rash. Microcephaly is an abnormal development of the brain. The consequences of microcephaly can vary according to the extent of brain damage.
He said most people with Zika virus infection do not develop symptoms. The incubation period of ZIKV infection lasts for 2-7 days. In 2015, major ZIKV outbreaks were reported in Brazil, North America, the Pacific and Southeast Asia, infecting 1.5 million people and recording more than 3,500 microcephaly cases in infants. In India, 157 ZIKV positive cases were reported in 2018.
Currently, there are no definitive antivirals against ZIKV and only symptomatic treatment regimens are followed. Zika virus infection is also a trigger of Guillain-Barré syndrome, neuropathy and myelitis, especially in adults and older children. The Zika virus vaccine is currently in various stages of development.
According to him, the brain is surrounded by a barrier known as the blood-brain-barrier (BBB), which separates the brain from the body’s peripheral blood circulation. The BBB is formed by brain endothelial cells and these cells are held together by proteins called tight-junction proteins (TJs) and adherent junction proteins (AJs).
If TJ and AJ protein expression is decreased, the BBB is compromised and allows the movement of immune cells into the brain that cause neuronal damage. ZIKV infected cells secrete a viral protein, NS1, which has been shown to directly correlate with disease severity in patients.
Their study reported that Zika virus NS1 protein treatment compromises BBB integrity and can lead to microcephaly and other brain disorders in infants. The research group reported that the Zika virus NS1 protein upregulates the expression of microRNA-101_3P in human brain microvascular endothelial cells, which in turn suppresses the expression of tight-junction proteins and adjacent junction proteins and thereby compromises the integrity of the BBB.
They reported that this may be one of several mechanisms responsible for compromising the blood-brain barrier to facilitate the entry of Zika virus into the brain.
“This discovery will be of great help in understanding the molecular pathogenesis of Zika virus and in the development of therapeutics. Zika virus infection can be diagnosed by laboratory tests of blood, urine and semen,” said Singh.
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