Comparative analysis of host responses to Oropouche viruses in placental cell infection models
10 affiliations
- 1Department of Medicine, Institute of Infection and Immunity, St George’s School of Health and Medical Sciences, City St George’s, University of London, London, United Kingdom
- 2Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases, Departments of Tropical Disease Biology and Vector Biology, Liverpool, United Kingdom
- 3Department of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, Cardiovascular and Genomics Research Institute, St George’s School of Health and Medical Sciences, City St George’s, University of London, London, United Kingdom
- 4The Pirbright Institute, Ash Road, Pirbright (Woking), United Kingdom
- 5MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Glasgow, United Kingdom
- 6The Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, United States of America
- 7World Reference Center for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, United States of America
- 8Harris Research Centre, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
- 9Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, United Kingdom
- 10Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Department of Metabolism, Digestion, and Reproduction, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Abstract
2022-2024 saw a major outbreak of midge-borne Oropouche virus (OROV, Peribunyaviridae) that affected Brazil and countries across the region and was associated with a novel reassortant of this pathogen. The description of fetal deaths, microcephaly and congenital malformations in newborns led to the question whether such pathologies had previously been overlooked or are associated with novel properties of reassortant OROV, raising the question of infection and transfer across the placenta. Here we compared infection of cultured placental cell lines (BeWo and JEG-3) with an earlier OROV isolate and a Cuban isolate from 2024. Our data suggest minor, but noticeable differences between these OROV and respective host cell responses, for example relating to IFNL3. It remains to be investigated whether characteristics of these different isolates translate to effects on fetal development, but these findings suggest that cellular responses can differ between ancestral and recent isolates of this virus. Author summary: Oropouche virus (OROV) is a midge-borne human pathogenic orthobunyavirus that caused an unexpected, large outbreak around 2022–2024 in Brazil and other parts of the region. This was linked to a novel reassortant, e.g., a virus whose genome is a new combination of the three negative strand RNA segments that make up the viral genome. During this outbreak, OROV infection was associated with occasional cases of fetal death, microcephaly and congenital malformations in newborns which had not been described before. This raised the question whether this reassortant OROV had properties different from other OROV, including infection of the placenta and from there the fetus. Here we compared an ancestral and a recent OROV to assess their ability to infect placental cell and induction host responses. While differences were generally minor, some noticeable changes may be relevant to understand the pathogenesis of this infection.
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BibTeX
@article{latham2026comparative,
title = {{Comparative analysis of host responses to Oropouche viruses in placental cell infection models}},
author = {Katie A. Latham and Georgia Brassington and Alan M. Pittman and Isabelle Dietrich and Joseph Hughes and Yvette Kazungu and Jessica A. Plante and Kenneth S. Plante and Andrew Sharp and Benjamin Brennan and Beth Holder and Blair L. Strang and Alain Kohl},
journal = {PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pntd.0014593},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0014593},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Comparative analysis of host responses to Oropouche viruses in placental cell infection models
AU - Katie A. Latham
AU - Georgia Brassington
AU - Alan M. Pittman
AU - Isabelle Dietrich
AU - Joseph Hughes
AU - Yvette Kazungu
AU - Jessica A. Plante
AU - Kenneth S. Plante
AU - Andrew Sharp
AU - Benjamin Brennan
AU - Beth Holder
AU - Blair L. Strang
AU - Alain Kohl
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
JO - PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
DO - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0014593
UR - https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0014593
AB - 2022-2024 saw a major outbreak of midge-borne Oropouche virus (OROV, Peribunyaviridae) that affected Brazil and countries across the region and was associated with a novel reassortant of this pathogen. The description of fetal deaths, microcephaly and congenital malformations in newborns led to the question whether such pathologies had previously been overlooked or are associated with novel properties of reassortant OROV, raising the question of infection and transfer across the placenta. Here we compared infection of cultured placental cell lines (BeWo and JEG-3) with an earlier OROV isolate and a Cuban isolate from 2024. Our data suggest minor, but noticeable differences between these OROV and respective host cell responses, for example relating to IFNL3. It remains to be investigated whether characteristics of these different isolates translate to effects on fetal development, but these findings suggest that cellular responses can differ between ancestral and recent isolates of this virus. Author summary: Oropouche virus (OROV) is a midge-borne human pathogenic orthobunyavirus that caused an unexpected, large outbreak around 2022–2024 in Brazil and other parts of the region. This was linked to a novel reassortant, e.g., a virus whose genome is a new combination of the three negative strand RNA segments that make up the viral genome. During this outbreak, OROV infection was associated with occasional cases of fetal death, microcephaly and congenital malformations in newborns which had not been described before. This raised the question whether this reassortant OROV had properties different from other OROV, including infection of the placenta and from there the fetus. Here we compared an ancestral and a recent OROV to assess their ability to infect placental cell and induction host responses. While differences were generally minor, some noticeable changes may be relevant to understand the pathogenesis of this infection.
SN - 1935-2735
ER -