While
studying viruses best known for infecting the brain, researchers at Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis stumbled upon clues to a conundrum
involving a completely different part of the anatomy: the bowel, and why some
people possibly develop digestive problems seemingly out of the blue.
The
researchers found that viruses such as West Nile and Zika that target
the nervous system in the brain and spinal cord also can kill neurons in the
guts of mice, disrupting bowel movement and causing intestinal blockages. Other
viruses that infect neurons also may cause the same symptoms, the researchers
said.
Postdoctoral
researcher and first author James White, PhD, was studying mice infected with
West Nile virus, a mosquito-borne virus that causes inflammation in the brain,
when he noticed something peculiar. The intestines of some of the infected mice
were packed with waste higher up and empty farther down, as if they had a
blockage.
The
findings, published Oct. 4 in the journal Cell, potentially could explain why
some people experience recurrent, unpredictable bouts of abdominal pain and
constipation -- and perhaps point to a new strategy for preventing such
conditions.
See:
James
P. White, Shanshan Xiong, Nicole P. Malvin, William Khoury-Hanold, Robert O.
Heuckeroth, Thaddeus S. Stappenbeck, Michael S. Diamond. Intestinal Dysmotility
Syndromes following Systemic Infection by Flaviviruses. Cell, 2018; DOI:
10.1016/j.cell.2018.08.069
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle,
Pharmaceutical Microbiology