Human cytomegalovirus induces significant structural and functional changes in terminally differentiated human cortical neurons. mBio 2023 Nov 15;14(6):e0225123
Date
11/15/2023Pubmed ID
37966250Pubmed Central ID
PMC10746155DOI
10.1128/mbio.02251-23Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85183165409 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 1 CitationAbstract
Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a highly prevalent viral pathogen that can cause serious neurological deficits in infants experiencing an in utero infection. Also, as a life-long infection, HCMV has been associated with several diseases in the adult brain. HCMV is known to infect early neural progenitor cells, but whether it also infects terminally differentiated neurons is still debated. Here, we differentiated human-induced pluripotent stem cells into neurons for 84-120 days to test the ability of HCMV to infect terminally differentiated neurons and assess the downstream functional consequences. We discovered that mature human neurons are highly permissive to HCMV infection, exhibited late replication hallmarks, and produced infectious virus. Moreover, infection in terminally differentiated neurons essentially eliminated neuron function. These results demonstrate that terminally differentiated human neurons are permissive to HCMV infection, which can significantly alter both structural and functional features of this mature neuron population.
Author List
Adelman JW, Rosas-Rogers S, Schumacher ML, Mokry RL, Terhune SS, Ebert ADAuthors
Allison D. Ebert PhD Associate Professor in the Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy department at Medical College of WisconsinScott Terhune PhD Professor in the Microbiology and Immunology department at Medical College of Wisconsin
