Zika virus impairs growth in human neurospheres and brain organoids

Patricia P Garcez; Erick C Loiola; Rodrigo F Madeiro da Costa; Luiza Higa; Pablo Trindade; Rodrigo Delvecchio; Juliana M Nascimento; Rodrigo M Brindeiro; Almicar Tanuri; Stevens K Rehen

doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.1817v2

Zika virus impairs growth in human neurospheres and brain organoids

Patricia P Garcez^1,2, Erick C Loiola², Rodrigo F Madeiro da Costa², Luiza Higa³, Pablo Trindade², Rodrigo Delvecchio³, Juliana M Nascimento^2,4, Rodrigo M Brindeiro³, Almicar Tanuri³, Stevens K Rehen ^1,2

1 Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

2 D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

3 Institute of Biology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

4 Department of Biochemistry and Tissue Biology / Institute of Biology, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, SP, Brazil

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.1817v2

Published: 2016-03-04
Accepted: 2016-03-04

Subject Areas: Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Neuroscience
Keywords: zika virus, cerebral organoids, cell death, microcephaly, stem cells

Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Cite this article: Garcez PP, Loiola EC, Madeiro da Costa RF, Higa L, Trindade P, Delvecchio R, Nascimento JM, Brindeiro RM, Tanuri A, Rehen SK. 2016. Zika virus impairs growth in human neurospheres and brain organoids. PeerJ Preprints 4:e1817v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1817v2

Abstract

Since the emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV), reports of microcephaly have increased dramatically in Brazil; however, causality between the widespread epidemic and malformations in fetal brains has not been confirmed. Here, we examine the effects of ZIKV infection in human neural stem cells growing as neurospheres and cerebral organoids. Using immunocytochemistry and electron microscopy, we show that ZIKV targets human brain cells, reducing their viability and growth as neurospheres and cerebral organoids. These results suggest that ZIKV abrogates neurogenesis during human brain development.

Author Comment

This version only corrects a typo on the e-mail of corresponding author and has the same content as prior preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.