Researchers have successfully propagated the human norovirus using zebrafish embryos.
The work provides a valuable platform to assess the effectiveness of virus inactivation for the water treatment and food industries.
Human norovirus (HuNoV) is currently the predominant cause of acute gastroenteritis worldwide, contributing to an estimated 684 million diarrhea cases, resulting in 212,000 annual fatalities.
For a substantial period, the absence of an in vitro culture system has been a major hurdle in norovirus research. The most recently optimized human intestinal enteroid model, designed to support human norovirus replication, relies on human biopsy specimens obtained from surgical or endoscopic procedures, which are typically scarce. Moreover, maintaining these cells is both labor and resource intensive.
The researchers discovered that zebrafish embryo can be used as a host for cultivating HuNoV. The zebrafish embryo model is easy to handle, robust, and has a capacity to efficiently replicate HuNoVs.
To the best of their knowledge, the new study, published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, represents an inaugural demonstration of the highest fold-increase over the baseline. Most notably, the model enables the continuous passaging of HuNoV within a laboratory setting. With this model, researchers can effectively propagate and sustain the presence of HuNoV over time, enabling them to study in more depth its behavior, replication, and other properties.
“The zebrafish embryo model represents an essential improvement in the HuNoV cultivation method. With its high efficiency and robustness, this tool is able to enhance both the breadth and depth of HuNoV-related research,” says Li Dan assistant professor in the food science and technology department at National University of Singapore.
“It is expected that this tool will not only benefit the advancement of epidemiological research on HuNoV but will also be invaluable in establishing HuNoV inactivation parameters. These parameters are highly needed by the water treatment and food industries to develop more effective methods for preventing the spread of the virus.”
In the future, the research team plans to utilize the zebrafish embryo model to investigate inactivation methods for HuNoVs in food products. To date, the successful detection of infectious HuNoV in food products remains an elusive goal. While further refinement and optimization efforts are still required, the research team’s ongoing work holds great promise in tackling this challenging task.
Source: NUS
