Chinese scientists injected the Asian strain of Zika, which is closely related to the one circulating in south America, into the brains of mice foetuses 13 days after fertilisation. The results, published in Cell Stem Cell, found the developing brain was smaller five days later.
Dr Zhiheng Xu, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: “The most surprising part of this study is that it was mostly neural progenitor cells that got infected in the beginning and mostly neurons that became infected at a later stage.
“However, almost all cell death was found in neurons.”
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