NEW YORK (AP) – A lab study has found that Zika can infect embryonic cells that help form the brain, adding to evidence that the virus causes a serious birth defect.
The mosquito-borne virus, which is spreading in Latin America and the Caribbean, normally causes only mild symptoms, if any in adults. But scientists are alarmed by indications that when it infects a pregnant woman, her baby may be born with a small head and a brain that hasn’t developed properly.
Researchers suspect Zika infection causes the condition, called microcephaly, but are still trying to prove it. Reports have documented traces of the virus in the brains of babies with microcephaly who’d died soon after birth, and in fetal brain tissue after abortion.
The new work provides experimental evidence that once the virus reaches the developing brain, it can infect and harm cells that are key for further brain development, said Hengli Tang of Florida State University, a lead author of the work.
Results were released Friday by the journal Cell Stem Cell.