Are American strains of Zika more virulent than strains in the Pacific and Asia? – ScienceDaily

ZIKV is a virus of the Flaviviridae family carried by infected Aedes mosquitoes. It was isolated for the first time in Uganda in the mid-20th century, but has since expanded to Micronesia, Oceania and, more recently, South America, Central America, New Caledonia and the Middle East. North America and the Caribbean. The strains in each domain, however, are distinct; genetic badyzes showed three subtypes – American, Pacific and Southeast Asian. Previous research has suggested that these subtypes differ in their infectious patterns.

In the new work, Shigeru Tajima, of the Japanese National Institute of Infectious Diseases, and his colleagues compared the US subtype PRVABC59, the Pacific subtype ZIKV / Hu / Chiba / S36 / 2016 (ChibaS36), and the subtype ZIKV / Hu / NIID123 / 2016 (NIID123) Subtype of Southeast Asia. They examined growth rates both in vitro and in mice, and observed viral loads and levels of testicular involvement in infected mice.

The PRVABC59 and ChibaS36 strains had significantly greater growth capacity than NIID123 in several isolated cell types, with the US strain having the highest growth potential. In addition, two weeks after infection, the amount of infectious particles and viral RNA in the bad tract of male mice was lowest in animals infected with the NIID123 strain. Six weeks after infection, the testes were more damaged in mice infected with American PRVABC59 staining.

"These results raise the possibility that ZIKV has acquired a high proliferation capacity and pathogenicity during the process of spreading the virus from Southeast Asia to the Americas, via the Pacific Islands," say the researchers.

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