VATIS UPDATE Article

A new study done by Walter Siqueira, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, Canada, and a team of international researchers, now offers a new, quicker and more cost-effect way to test for the Zika virus. For the first time, researchers are using proteomics to examine proteins and peptides in saliva in order to accurately detect exposure to Zika virus. The findings of the study have been published in the Journal of Dental Research (JDR).

With 70 countries and territories reporting evidence of mosquito-borne Zika virus transmission, there is an increased need for a rapid and effective test for the virus. By analyzing the saliva of a pregnant mother infected with Zika and her twins – one born with microcephaly and one without – the researchers were able to pinpoint the specific ­protein signature for Zika that is present in saliva, creating potential to use this signature as an effective way to screen for exposure.

Researchers also discovered important clues about how the virus passes from mother to baby and its role in the development of microcephaly, a birth defect in which a baby’s head and brain is smaller than expected. The research suggests a vertical transmission of the virus between mother and baby. The mutations in the amino acid sequence of the peptides that were different for each twin, suggesting that these mutations may play a role in whether or not a baby will develop microcephaly.