Zika Virus Potentiates the Development of Neurological Defects and Microcephaly: Challenges and Control Strategies.

Rabeea Siddique,Ghulam Nabi,Suliman Khan,Mengzhou Xue,Yang Liu,Wasim Sajjad

doi:10.3389/fneur.2019.00319

Abstract

Since the beginning of the Zika Virus (ZIKV) epidemic, thousands of cases presenting ZIKV symptoms were recorded in Brazil, Colombia (South America), French Polynesia and other countries of Central and North America. In Brazil, during ZIKV outbreak thousands of microcephaly cases occurred that caused a state of urgency among scientists and researchers to confirm the suspected association between ZIKV infection and microcephaly. In this review article we comprehensively studied scientific literature to analyze ZIKV relationship with microcephaly, recent experimental studies, challenge and shortcomings in previously published reports to know about the current status of this association. The evidences supporting the association of ZIKV infection with congenital microcephaly and fetal brain tissue damage is rapidly increasing, and supplying recent information about pathology, clinical medicine, epidemiology, mechanism and experimental studies. However, serious attention is required toward ZIKV vaccine development, standardization of anthropometric techniques, centralization of data, and advance research to clearly understand the mechanism of ZIKV infection causing microcephaly.

Highlights

The Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne, single-stranded RNA, flavivirus that is closely related to yellow fever virus (YFV), Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) and dengue virus (DENV)
We comprehensively accessed and characterized current literature to discuss about the widespread epidemic of ZIKV, pathology of ZIKV related microcephaly, recent in vitro and in vivo experimental studies to understand the mechanism of ZIKV infection, ambiguities in previously published data and ZIKV future implications, its control strategies and hints of advance research to affirm this probationary link
Brasil et al claimed a positive association of ZIKV with microcephaly, i.e., 4/42 cases among the exposure group vs. 0/16 among the non-exposure group, without ZIKV laboratory confirmation and laboratory exclusion tests [31], for instance, plaque reduction neutralization test to minimize the chances of cross-reactivity of other vulnerable flaviviruses that can’t be ruled out [1]

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne, single-stranded RNA, flavivirus that is closely related to yellow fever virus (YFV), Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) and dengue virus (DENV). The possible etiologies may include environmental or genetic factors during pregnancy, such as, perinatal brain injury, craniosynostosis, drugs, hypertensive disorders, intrauterine infections caused by West Nile virus (WNV), and Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) [9], and other prenatal viral infections e.g., cytomegalovirus, syphilis, rubella, herpesvirus, and toxoplasmosis (TORCHES) [7]. It was not included in the list of neurological infection causing microorganisms until 2015 [7, 16]. We comprehensively accessed and characterized current literature to discuss about the widespread epidemic of ZIKV, pathology of ZIKV related microcephaly, recent in vitro and in vivo experimental studies to understand the mechanism of ZIKV infection, ambiguities in previously published data and ZIKV future implications, its control strategies and hints of advance research to affirm this probationary link

ZIKA VIRUS EPIDEMICS

ZIKV INFECTION

CHALLENGES IN ZIKV RELATED STUDIES

OF ZIKV

Findings

CONCLUSIONS