Publications by authors named "Z Zakay-Rones"
Article Synopsis
- Congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) is a major cause of neurodevelopmental disabilities in infants, highlighting the need for better prevention strategies.
- Researchers studied human CMV infection in decidual tissues from women with and without immunity, finding that those with preconception immunity show resistance to the virus and stimulate specific immune cells upon reinfection.
- The study suggests that enhancing the immune response in decidual tissues could help develop a vaccine for cCMV and improve understanding of immune defenses at the maternal-fetal interface.
Article Synopsis
- - SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant shows reduced clinical severity, prompting research into how its interactions with the respiratory tract affect this difference in pathogenicity.
- - In lab tests with human nasal and lung tissues, Omicron's replication in lung tissues is much more restricted compared to Delta and earlier variants, while remaining similar in nasal tissues.
- - Omicron triggers a stronger antiviral interferon response in lung tissues than Delta and earlier variants, suggesting that this enhanced immune response contributes to its lower severity; blocking this immune response can allow greater replication of Omicron in lungs.
BACKGROUNDCytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common intrauterine infection, leading to infant brain damage. Prognostic assessment of CMV-infected fetuses has remained an ongoing challenge in prenatal care, in the absence of established prenatal biomarkers of congenital CMV (cCMV) infection severity. We aimed to identify prognostic biomarkers of cCMV-related fetal brain injury.
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- The nasal mucosa is the main entry point for respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2, but its early immune responses during infection have been largely overlooked.
- Research used human nasal and lung tissues to analyze how these sites respond to SARS-CoV-2 compared to influenza, revealing that the nasal mucosa mounts a strong antiviral response while lung tissues show a much weaker reaction.
- These findings indicate that targeting the nasal mucosa could be crucial for early intervention during SARS-CoV-2 infection, potentially preventing severe lung damage seen in advanced COVID-19 cases.
The initial events of viral infection at the primary mucosal entry site following horizontal person-to-person transmission have remained ill defined. Our limited understanding is further underscored by the absence of animal models in the case of human-restricted viruses, such as human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a leading cause of congenital infection and a major pathogen in immunocompromised individuals. Here, we established a novel model of HCMV infection in native human nasal turbinate tissues.
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