Joyce Jose, assistant professor at Penn State, and her team are launching new research on nanotube tunneling process influencing transmission of Zika virus from the mother to the fetus.
In their previous research, they identified that prior to tunneling, Zika cells use a "lock and latch" method by two Zika proteins: a capsid and a viral membrane protein which connect to stabilize virus for infection.
Recently, these Jose and her team discovered that maternal cells infected with the Zika virus create connections called tunneling nanotubes, that extend to uninfected cells, both maternal and fetal. In addition to transmission, this mechanism is suspected to evade the immune system
The protein non-structural protein 1(NS1) interacts with human cells to form nanotubes; these researchers even identified components of the virus, pieces of RNA material and protein inside the nanotubes.
Next, they plan to look at the action of these nanotubes in pregnant mice.
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