Growth of Zika virus in human reconstituted respiratory, intestinal, vaginal and neural tissues.

Objectives: Zika virus (ZIKV) is mostly mosquito borne but it can also be transmitted via the sexual route and persists in semen for a prolonged time. Moreover, viral RNA has been detected in breast milk, saliva, lacrimal fluids and urine, suggesting other possible transmission routes. The aim of our research is to better define ZIKV tropism.

Methods: We investigated the tropism of Asian and African strains of ZIKV using human-derived neural, vaginal, intestinal and respiratory tissues.

Results: Asian and African strains of ZIKV were able to grow in all tissues tested, although with different efficiency (7.3 log RNA copies released apically in vaginal tissues versus 9.8 log RNA copies released in intestinal tissues), without the need for major adaptation.

Conclusions: Our results underline that ZIKV tropism may be broader than expected in humans and stress the need to better explore all possible virus-shedding sites and transmission routes.