A human cerebral organoid model of West Nile virus encephalitis shows innate immunocompetency
Nature Communications·
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41467-026-70281-x
- PMID
- 41794851
- PMCID
- PMC12976376
- OpenAlex
- —
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Publication version
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Open linked preprint →Why this research matters now
The abstract notes that West Nile virus is of emerging global interest and that no protective vaccine or specific treatment currently exists for human WNV encephalitis, framing the work as relevant to future therapeutic development.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The study examines whether human cerebral organoids can serve as a model for West Nile virus encephalitis, with attention to innate immune responses and infection kinetics in neural cell populations.
Study design
An in vitro experimental study using human cerebral organoids derived from male iPSCs that were infected with West Nile virus to characterize infection kinetics and immune mediator release.
Population and setting
The setting is a laboratory model using human cerebral organoids generated from male iPSCs; no human patients or geographic setting are described.
Main findings
WNV infection of organoids showed heterogeneous kinetics with an early strong replication phase and a later peak associated with more persistent infection. Viral foci localized to cortical-like areas containing neurons and astrocytes but lacking microglia. Infection triggered increased release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, and biomarkers including IL-6, TNF-α, IL-18, CXCL10, CCL17, CX3CL1, CCL2, IL-1RA, sTREM-1, sRAGE, and BDNF.
Public-health relevance
The abstract notes that West Nile virus is of emerging global interest and that no protective vaccine or specific treatment currently exists for human WNV encephalitis, framing the work as relevant to future therapeutic development.
Important limitations
The summary is limited to the supplied single-article abstract and metadata and requires the original paper for decision-grade interpretation; the abstract does not enumerate explicit study limitations.
GIDS interpretation
From a discoverability perspective, the article is indexed under West Nile virus with relevance to vaccination and treatment topics, which may aid retrieval by users searching for WNV neuroinvasive disease models; no connection to a live surveillance signal can be inferred from the supplied metadata.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 8 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.