Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; St. Paul, MN, United States of America.
Arthropod-Borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University; Ft. Collins, CO, United States of America.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2019 Apr 17;13(4):e0007343. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0007343. eCollection 2019 Apr.
Congenital Zika virus (ZIKV) infection was first linked to birth defects during the American outbreak in 2015/2016. It has been proposed that mutations unique to the Asian/American-genotype explain, at least in part, the ability of Asian/American ZIKV to cause congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). Recent studies identified mutations in ZIKV infecting humans that arose coincident with the outbreak in French Polynesia and were stably maintained during subsequent spread to the Americas. Here we show that African ZIKV can infect and harm fetuses and that the S139N substitution that has been associated with the American outbreak is not essential for fetal harm. Our findings, in a vertical transmission mouse model, suggest that ZIKV will remain a threat to pregnant women for the foreseeable future, including in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Americas. Additional research is needed to better understand the risks associated with ZIKV infection during pregnancy, both in areas where the virus is newly endemic and where it has been circulating for decades.
先天性寨卡病毒（ZIKV）感染于 2015/2016 年在美国爆发期间首次与出生缺陷有关联。有人提出，亚洲/美洲基因型特有的突变至少在一定程度上解释了亚洲/美洲寨卡病毒导致先天性寨卡综合征（CZS）的能力。最近的研究鉴定了感染人类的寨卡病毒中的突变，这些突变与法属波利尼西亚的疫情同时出现，并在随后传播到美洲期间稳定保留。在这里，我们表明非洲寨卡病毒能够感染和伤害胎儿，并且与美国疫情相关联的 S139N 取代并非胎儿伤害所必需的。我们在垂直传播的小鼠模型中的发现表明，在可预见的未来，寨卡病毒将继续对孕妇构成威胁，包括在非洲、东南亚和美洲。需要进一步研究，以更好地了解在病毒新流行地区和已流行数十年的地区孕妇感染寨卡病毒相关的风险。
