How human cells became Zika virus factories

"Dendritic cells are the primary cells of the innate immune system," said Dr.

Now, Shresta and his colleagues at LJI and the University of California, San Diego have found that the Zika virus actually forces dendritic cells to stop functioning

"Dendritic cells do their best to help the virus," Shresta said

The study in the journal Nature Communications is a big step forward in the work of Shresta's lab in guiding the design of new antiviral therapies for many members of the flavivirus family, including Zika virus, dengue fever, and Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV

"Understanding how viruses interact with human cells is critical to understanding how infections can be treated or prevented in the future," said Aaron Carlin, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, who is a M.

Dr.

Blanche analyzed how gene expression in these dendritic cells changed during Zika or dengue infection

The researchers found that zika virus manipulates genes

"We showed that Zika virus (as opposed to dengue) regulates cellular metabolism to increase its replication

The team then investigated whether zika virus converts other cells into lipid factories

"These viruses are crazy," Shresta said

The next step is to develop antiviral drugs that prevent Zika virus from using lipids to metabolize genes

How to deal with dengue fever, the cousin of Zika virus? Because these viruses are so closely related and overlap in many places, Shresta believes that SREBP inhibitors are just one component in a "cocktail" of inhibitors that treat a variety of different flavivirus infections

"The more we learn about these viruses, the closer we get to 'yellowing virus' inhibitors

Journal Reference:

1. Emilie Branche, Ying-Ting Wang, Karla M.