Treatment with sofosbuvir attenuates the adverse neurodevelopmental consequences of Zika virus infection in infant rhesus macaques.

Zika virus (ZIKV) infection during infancy in a rhesus macaque (RM) model negatively impacts brain development resulting in long-term behavioral alterations. The current study investigated whether postexposure prophylaxis could alleviate these negative neurodevelopmental consequences. Three RM infants received a 14-day course of sofosbuvir (SOF; 15 mg/kg p.o.) treatment starting at 3 days post-infection with a Puerto Rican strain of ZIKV (PRVABC59) and were then monitored longitudinally for one year. In contrast to ZIKV-infected infant RMs who did not receive SOF, postexposure SOF treatment mitigated the neurodevelopmental, behavioral and cognitive changes seen after postnatal ZIKV infection even while not accelerating viral clearance from the blood. These data suggest that antiviral treatment may help ameliorate some, but not all, of the neurodevelopmental abnormalities associated with early postnatal ZIKV infection.

Cerebral Aß deposition in an Aß-precursor protein-transgenic rhesus monkey.

With the ultimate goal of developing a more representative animal model of Alzheimer's disease (AD), two female amyloid-ß-(Aß) precursor protein-transgenic (APPtg) rhesus monkeys were generated by lentiviral transduction of the APP gene into rhesus oocytes, followed by in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. The APP-transgene included the AD-associated Swedish K670N/M671L and Indiana V717F mutations (APPSWE/IND) regulated by the human polyubiquitin-C promoter. Overexpression of APP was confirmed in lymphocytes and brain tissue. Upon sacrifice at 10 years of age, one of the monkeys had developed Aß plaques and cerebral Aß-amyloid angiopathy in the occipital, parietal, and caudal temporal neocortices. The induction of Aß deposition more than a decade prior to its usual emergence in the rhesus monkey supports the feasibility of creating a transgenic nonhuman primate model for mechanistic analyses and preclinical testing of treatments for Alzheimer's disease and cerebrovascular amyloidosis.