In Vitro Zika Virus Infection of Human Neural Progenitor Cells: Meta-Analysis of RNA-Seq Assays

The Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emergent arthropod-borne virus (arbovirus) responsible for congenital Zika syndrome (CZS) and a range of other congenital malformations. With little known about the pathways involved in CZS, Gratton et al in the February 2020 issue of Microorganisms conducted a meta-analysis of transcriptome studies to identify the genes and pathways altered during Zika infection. Reactome analysis identified interferon, pro-inflammatory, and chemokines signaling as well as apoptosis as key IFN signaling pathways in ZIKV-infected cells with three new candidate genes involved in hNPCs infection identified: APOL6, XAF1, and TNFRSF1.