Recent African strains of Zika virus display higher transmissibility and fetal pathogenicity than Asian strains

Fabien Aubry,Oumar Faye,Claudia M Romero-Vivas,Fabiana Gámbaro,Stéphanie Dabo,Maïlis Darmuzey,Ousmane Faye,Sébastian Lequime ,Leen Delang,Etienne Simon‐Lorière ,Caroline Manet,Van-Mai Cao-Lormeau,Xavier Montagutelli,Albin Fontaine,Richard G Jarman,Laurent Nguyen,Elliott F Miot,Cheikh Tidiane Diagne ,Artem Baidaliuk,Maxime Gilsoul,Sofie Jacobs,Natapong Jupatanakul,Amadou Alpha Sall ,Suzanne Kaptein ,Johan Neyts,Louis Lambrechts

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-21199-z

Abstract

The global emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV) revealed the unprecedented ability for a mosquito-borne virus to cause congenital birth defects. A puzzling aspect of ZIKV emergence is that all human outbreaks and birth defects to date have been exclusively associated with the Asian ZIKV lineage, despite a growing body of laboratory evidence pointing towards higher transmissibility and pathogenicity of the African ZIKV lineage. Whether this apparent paradox reflects the use of relatively old African ZIKV strains in most laboratory studies is unclear. Here, we experimentally compare seven low-passage ZIKV strains representing the recently circulating viral genetic diversity. We find that recent African ZIKV strains display higher transmissibility in mosquitoes and higher lethality in both adult and fetal mice than their Asian counterparts. We emphasize the high epidemic potential of African ZIKV strains and suggest that they could more easily go unnoticed by public health surveillance systems than Asian strains due to their propensity to cause fetal loss rather than birth defects.

Highlights

The global emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV) revealed the unprecedented ability for a mosquito-borne virus to cause congenital birth defects
Whereas human ZIKV infections are usually asymptomatic or result in a self-limiting mild illness, ZIKV was associated for the first time with severe neurological complications such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) in adults, and congenital Zika syndrome (CZS), a spectrum of fetal abnormalities and developmental disorders including microcephaly, when mothers were infected during early pregnancy[10,11]
To evaluate variation in transmissibility by wild-type Ae. aegypti between the ZIKV strains, we examined the mosquito infection rate and transmission efficiency [proportion of blood-fed mosquitoes with infectious saliva, determined by focus-forming assay (FFA)] following exposure to an artificial infectious blood meal

Summary

Introduction

The global emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV) revealed the unprecedented ability for a mosquito-borne virus to cause congenital birth defects. A puzzling aspect of ZIKV emergence is that all human outbreaks and birth defects to date have been exclusively associated with the Asian ZIKV lineage, despite a growing body of laboratory evidence pointing towards higher transmissibility and pathogenicity of the African ZIKV lineage. Whether this apparent paradox reflects the use of relatively old African ZIKV strains in most laboratory studies is unclear. Most of the available African ZIKV strains were isolated several decades ago and often underwent numerous passages in cell culture and/or suckling mouse brains[53], questioning their biological relevance for comparative studies and experimental assessments of their epidemic potential

Methods

Results

Conclusion