Inés Catoya, Laura Carretero, Carmen Centelles and Cristina Chivato
September 13th 2018
According to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogensby Amelia Kahler Pinto and colleagues, the so-called CD4+T cell, is a type of immune cell that helps in the activation of other lymphocytes such as CD8+T cells and B cells. CD4+T lymphocytes play an important role in protecting mice infected with the Zika virus against severe neurological disease.
The Zika virus is a mosquito-borne virus that has recently spread throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. In some cases, Zika infection during pregnancy causes severe birth defects such as microcephaly, but infection with the virus can also cause neurological disease in adults. Since the risks carried out by this infection were known, researchers have focused on detection, defining correlates of protection, and the development of a vaccine or antiviral to protect against disease progression. However, efforts focused on prevention and treatment has been limited by the lack of knowledge about how to generate a protective immune response against this emerging pathogen.
To address this gap in knowledge, Pinto and colleagues investigated the role of CD4+T cells in protecting against Zika virus disease affecting the nervous system using a mouse model of infection. Mice lacking CD4+T cells showed more severe neurological symptoms such as limb paralysis and whole-body tremors, increased mortality, and significant increases in viral concentrations in the central nervous system. Moreover, the transfer of CD4+T cells from Zika-immunized mice protected susceptible mice from a potentially lethal dose of the virus.
This findings revealed a novel role for CD4+T cells in providing protection against Zika virus infection and highlights the need for vaccines that elicit robust CD4+T cell responses to control viral replication within the central nervous system and prevent the exacerbation of severe neurological disease".
Keywords: #zika #virus #immunology
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