ArticlePLoS pathogens2018
Zika virus infection in immunocompetent pregnant mice causes fetal damage and placental pathology in the absence of fetal infection.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 98 citations in OpenAlex.
- Influenza A virus infection induces immune dysregulation in the placenta and fetus without vertical transmission in nonhuman primates.Science advances · 2026Article
- Tunneling nanotubes contribute to Zika virus pathogenesis at the maternal-fetal interfacemBio · 2026Article
- Organoids: From Bench to Bedside Applications.MedComm · 2026Review
- Interferon lambda signaling to maternal dendritic cells protects against congenital Zika virus infection.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Zika Virus Reprograms Microglial Mitochondrial Metabolism to Support Immune Activation and Viral Replication: Omega-3 DHA Counteracts Neuroinflammation and Viral Persistence.Molecular neurobiology · 2026Article
- Inapparent maternal ZIKV infection impacts fetal brain development and postnatal behavior.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Innate immune responses to pathogens at the maternal-fetal interface.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2025Review
- Prenatal exposure to Zika virus shapes offspring neutrophil function in a sex-specific manner.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Maternal Immune Activation: Implications for Congenital Heart Defects.Clinical reviews in allergy & immunology · 2025Review
- Pre-conditioning with PQQ during pregnancy alleviates LPS-induced placental damage and improves the fetal survival and growth in mice.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Article
- Fetal MAVS and type I IFN signaling pathways control ZIKV infection in the placenta and maternal decidua.The Journal of experimental medicine · 2024Article
- Protective efficacy of a Zika purified inactivated virus vaccine candidate during pregnancy in marmosets.NPJ vaccines · 2024Article
- Zika purified inactivated virus (ZPIV) vaccine reduced vertical transmission in pregnant immunocompetent mice.NPJ vaccines · 2024Article
- Growth Velocity and Nutritional Status in Children Exposed to Zika Virus during Pregnancy from Amazonas Cohort, Brazil.Viruses · 2023Article
- Mouse models of Zika virus transplacental transmission.Antiviral research · 2023Review
- Transmission of Zika virus by dendritic cell subsets in skin and vaginal mucosa.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
- Zika virus induced microcephaly and aberrant hematopoietic cell differentiation modeled in novel neonatal humanized mice.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
- Effect of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection during pregnancy in K18-hACE2 transgenic mice.Animal bioscience · 2023Article
- The Innate Defense in the Zika-Infected Placenta.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Congenital Rift Valley fever in Sprague Dawley rats is associated with diffuse infection and pathology of the placenta.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Zika virus (ZIKV) infection during human pregnancy may cause diverse and serious congenital defects in the developing fetus. Previous efforts to generate animal models of human ZIKV infection and clinical symptoms often involved manipulating mice to impair their Type I interferon (IFN) signaling, thereby allowing enhanced infection and vertical transmission of virus to the embryo. Here, we show that even pregnant mice competent to generate Type I IFN responses that can limit ZIKV infection nonetheless develop profound placental pathology and high frequency of fetal demise. We consistently found that maternal ZIKV exposure led to placental pathology and that ZIKV RNA levels measured in maternal, placental or embryonic tissues were not predictive of the pathological effects seen in the embryos. Placental pathology included trophoblast hyperplasia in the labyrinth, trophoblast giant cell necrosis in the junctional zone, and loss of embryonic vessels. Our findings suggest that, in this context of limited infection, placental pathology rather than embryonic/fetal viral infection may be a stronger contributor to adverse pregnancy outcomes in mice. Our finding demonstrates that in immunocompetent mice, direct viral infection of the embryo is not essential for fetal demise. Our immunologically unmanipulated pregnancy mouse model provides a consistent and easily measurable congenital abnormality readout to assess fetal outcome, and may serve as an additional model to test prophylactic and therapeutic interventions to protect the fetus during pregnancy, and for studying the mechanisms of ZIKV congenital immunopathogenesis.
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