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USC researchers have identified biomarkers associated with severe birth defects in infants born to women infected with Zika virus, a finding that could lead to screening tests and a better understanding of how Infection leads to fetal abnormalities.
The results appear in the Nov. 2 Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight.
"The highest risk of birth defects is due to the Zika virus in the first and second trimesters.A prenatal test could potentially dispel the worries of many pregnant women," said Suan-Sin Foo, research fellow at Department of Molecular Microbiology. and Immunology at the USC's Keck School of Medicine and first author of the study. "We still have a lot to learn about the impact of the Zika virus on the immune response of the mother and the impact of an infection on her baby."
Most people infected with the Zika virus, which is transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, show no symptoms or mild illness accompanied by a low fever. But fetuses exposed to Zika in the uterus may have devastating neurological abnormalities. One of these flaws, microcephaly – a smaller head size than usual – took on importance in 2015, with Brazil reporting an unusual number of cases in infants born to mothers infected with the virus.
As these children have become young children, some can not see, walk, chew or talk and will require a lifetime of care, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the United States, approximately 2,483 pregnant women have been infected with Zika virus and 116 infants have been born with ZIK-associated birth defects since 2015.
Aedes mosquitoes have been discovered in Los Angeles, but none are carriers of the Zika virus, according to the Los Angeles County Public Health Department.
For the study, researchers examined the immune system of pregnant women using blood samples taken during the first, second, and third trimesters of pregnancy. They compared blood samples taken from 30 pregnant women infected with the Zika virus in Brazil with 30 healthy pregnant women in Brazil and 14 in Los Angeles.
Specifically, the researchers studied cytokines, messenger chemicals released by the body in response to an infection. On a panel of 69 cytokines screened, they identified 16 cytokines that appeared to be associated with abnormal Zika-induced births.
It's not clear if messenger chemicals cause birth defects or are secreted in response to something else, the researchers said.
"Ultrasound is commonly used during pregnancy to check the status of a baby, but there is a limit to what we can see." Magnetic resonance imaging can give high-resolution "snapshots" of the fetus, but there are safety concerns for the baby and this is recommended for second- and third-trimester pregnancies, "said Weiqiang Chen, associate researcher in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Dr. 39 Immunology of the Keck School of Medicine and co-first author of the study. "Our results have identified a group of biomarkers potentially useful for predicting fetal outcomes associated with Zika regardless of the stage of pregnancy, simply by evaluating the mother's blood."
This study was led by Jae Jung, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology of the USC, in collaboration with Patricia Brasil of the Instituto Nacional de Infectologie Evandro Chagas in Brazil, and Karin Nielsen-Saines and Genhong Cheng of UCLA. The other authors are Shin-Ae Lee and Yen Chan of the Keck School of Medicine and Wai-Suet Lee of Griffith University in Australia.
Deaf: USC
The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health (CA200422, CA180779, DE023926, AI073099, AI116585, AI129496, AI140705, AI069120, AI056154, AI078389, AI28697, AI28797, AI40718 and AI1274034-01), Hastings Department of Technology and Technology (DECIT / 25000.072811 / 2016-17) of the Ministry of Defense of Brazil and the State Council for Higher Level Patents CAPES / 88887.116627 / 2016-01.
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