Zika virus makes tumors shrink

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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The Zika epidemic in South America in 2015 terrified expectant parents. In children who became infected in the womb, the virus attacked and destroyed the neural stem cells in the brain.

Thousands were born with heads that were much too small, microcephalus, and severe disabilities. It is precisely this property of the virus that can perhaps even be used in a healing manner in the future: the pathogens attack aggressive brain tumors. At least with mice, this has already worked amazingly well.

Human tumors in mouse brains

Researchers led by Oswaldo Keith Okamoto had planted cell lines from various human tumors of the central nervous system in mouse brains. After the researchers injected small amounts of the purified viral material into the animals, the pathogen set to work. "It reacts even better to tumor cells than to neural stem cells," says Okamoto.

In 20 of the 29 animals treated, the virus attacked so well that the tumors significantly reduced in size and even completely disappeared in seven rodent heads. In some animals, the pathogens even turned against metastases that had already formed.

Aggressive and difficult to deal with

Malignant embryonic tumors of the central nervous system are the most common cancer in children and adolescents. They arise from immature cells that grow particularly quickly. The medulloblastoma, for example, is a tumor of the cerebellum. It mostly occurs in children between the ages of four and five. The atypical teratoid / rhabdoid tumor, ATRT for short, affects children up to two years of age. The prognosis for this form of cancer is poor and the treatment options are limited.

Specialized in tumor cells

This is another reason why the new therapeutic approach is so tempting: "We want to start with two to three test subjects as soon as possible," says Mayana Zatz, the second lead author of the study. To do this, however, it must be ensured that the treatment is as safe as possible for the little patients.

"At this point in time, we cannot rule out that the virus may damage neurons that are not yet fully differentiated, especially in very young children," says Okamoto when asked by Nevertheless, the researchers are optimistic in this regard: the virus appears to have a clear preference for tumor cells over neural stem cells.

Neurons that have already differentiated are certainly not damaged. "We have also seen that infected tumor cells die off quickly and do not scatter infectious viral particles into the body," says Okamoto. However, further investigation should rule out such safety concerns.

High chances of recovery, low risk?

In fact, until the 2015 outbreak, Zika was considered largely harmless. Most of those infected showed no symptoms at all, while others only developed a mild fever, rash, and headache. Serious secondary illnesses such as Guillain-Barr syndrome, which is associated with symptoms of paralysis, were very rare. In view of the aggressiveness of the brain tumors and the serious side effects that classic chemotherapy brings with it, the researchers rate the Zika therapy as promising.

Attempts to treat other forms of cancer such as breast or prostate cancer with the Zika virus have not been successful. However, the chances are good that other forms of brain tumors such as glioblastoma can also be fought with the viruses.

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