Study IDs 2 Zika Virus Proteins Linked to Microcephaly

Abram Arredondo, a spokesperson for the CDPH, said in an email that local pockets of Zika infection could crop up in areas of California where people have been infected with the virus but that the CDPH anticipates that such an outbreak would have a limited range and duration in California.

In short, Zika NS4A and NS4B proteins stunt brain development and prod autophagy to mushroom so that the virus could spread.

A recent study led indeed Brazilian researchers to establish a direct link between infection during pregnancy and arthrogryposis, which causes joint deformities at birth especially in the arms and legs.

The study authors still can’t say for sure that Zika caused the arthrogryposis.

They studied detailed brain and joint images of seven children with arthrogryposis and a diagnosis of congenital infection, presumably caused by Zika virus.

Babies with microcephaly have abnormally small heads and brains. The researchers identified two proteins in Zika potentially responsible for causing microcephaly.

The children were also tested to rule out five other main infectious causes of microcephaly – toxoplasmosis, cytomegalovirus, rubella, syphilis and HIV. Because of this, researchers hypothesized that the babies’ arthrogryposis were likely from a neurological basis.

There now exists no vaccine for the Zika virus and, according to Pereira, diagnosis of the virus is hard because the antibodies produced by the body in response to the virus are similar to those produced in response to dengue fever.

All children had however the cerebral calcification signs, when calcium accumulates in the brain. One theory is that Zika virus kills brain cells and forms scar-like lesions in the brain on which calcium is deposited, the researchers said. No evidence of joint abnormalities was found, van der Linden said.

Estafany Perreira holds her nephew David Henrique Ferreira, 5 months, who has microcephaly, on January 25, 2016 in Recife, Brazil. The lack of movement in the womb could lead to arthrogryposis, Nationwide Children’s Hospital reported.

“There is some treatment available in terms of physical therapy, casting and surgery, but some of those treatments can make it worse”, Hay said.

Dr. Amesh Adalja is a clinical assistant professor in the department of critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Findings from the latest study have already prompted further research to develop various Zika drugs and vaccines.

That the association with arthrogryposis doesn’t come from the joints but from nerves is not surprising as Zika has proven to have a strong affinity for nerve cells, Adalja said.

A study has identified how Zika shrinks a fetus’s skull.

Former presidential candidate Marco Rubio, however, told Politico that the fear of Zika complications is no reason to abort a baby. He’s contributed other research on Zika and thinks that this is “a significant development because it pinpoints the molecular players that [cause] the disease in fetus brains, and presumably can provide more precise or novel targets for therapeutics”.