MIAMI - The mosquito-borne Zika virus has
significantly evolved since it was first discovered in 1947, and
researchers said Friday these genetic changes could shed light on why it
has the power to cause birth defects.
Never before has a mosquito-borne virus shown the potential
to cause a condition known as microcephaly in babies born to mothers
infected while pregnant
Researchers looked for individual differences between more
than 40 strains of Zika virus -- 30 of which came from people, 10 from
mosquitoes, and one from a monkey.
They found big differences between the Asian and African
lineages of the virus, and "significant changes in both amino acid and
nucleotide sequences during the past half-century," said the study.
Zika strains found in humans are more genetically similar to
a strain identified in Malaysia in 1966 than that found in Nigeria in
1968, "suggesting the strains in the recent human outbreak evolved from
the Asian lineage," it said.
All of the human strains identified in the 2015-2016
outbreak appear most closely related to the virus identified in 2013 in
French Polynesia.
The team also found that a certain protein, called the
pre-membrane precursor or prM, was quite different between the Asian
human and the African mosquito subtypes.
"We believe these changes may, at least partially, explain
why the virus has demonstrated the capacity to spread exponentially in
the human population in the Americas," said senior study author Genhong
Cheng, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles's
department of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics.
"These changes could enable the virus to replicate more
efficiently, invade new tissues that provide protective niches for viral
propagation, or evade the immune system, leading to viral persistence."
More research is needed to uncover the precise reasons for Zika's ability to cause birth defects in some children.
Never before has a mosquito-borne virus shown the potential
to cause a condition known as microcephaly in babies born to mothers
infected while pregnant, leaving the infants with small heads and
deformed brains.
Thousands of babies in Brazil, the epicenter of the latest outbreak,
are suspected of being born with microcephaly since last year.Experts say the Zika strain causing the 2015-2016 epidemic has not yet been isolated from a mosquito.
A vaccine against the virus, which can also be sexually transmitted, is years away, US health authorities say.
Research finds Zika 'significantly changed' since 1947
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