Effect of protein restriction and congenital viral infection in brain development during embryonic life

CAMPOS EUSEBI, WANDA; GARCEZ, PATRICIA P.; GONZALEZ, PAULA N.; BARBEITO - ANDRÉS, JIMENA

Congreso; Reunión Anual de Sociedades de Biociencia; 2019

During prenatal life, different environmentalfactors could affect normal brain development. It has been demonstrated thatmaternal malnutrition impacts on offspring neural development, although someauthors have stated that brain growth is relatively preserved in comparison toother organs and tissues (brain sparing effect). As well, one of theconsequences of maternal malnutrition is the impairment of the immunologicalcondition, which could lead to more risk to be affected by different kinds of infections.Here, we evaluated the combined effect of maternal protein restriction andcongenital Zika virus (ZIKV) infection in a mouse model. Wild-type mouse damswere exposed to a severe low-protein or a standard diet and they were infectedwith ZIKV during the peak of embryonic neurogenesis or exposed to a shaminjection. Three days post-infection, dams were sacrificed and embryos wereanalyzed. Using immunohistochemistry labeling in brain embryos, we identifiedmicroglial cells (Iba1+) to assess the immune local response to viral infectionin cases of nutritional deprivation. Also, proliferation processes in theventricular and subventricular zone were analyzed using anti-ph3 antibody as amarker in order to infer if neurogenesis was affected by the interaction ofprotein restriction and ZIKV infection. We found that the embryos from damsthat were undernourished and exposed to infection present abundant Iba1+ cellsin the lateral ventricles, while this sign is absent in the other groups. Alsoin this group, the quantification of ph3+ cells revealed that there is areduction of the dividing cells in the subventricular zone, while in theventricular zone no significant differences were found (p<0.05). Our resultshighlight how protein restriction could enhance the effects of congenital ZIKVinfection altering normal brain development, which has implications for humanpopulations potentially affected by both factors.