Research progress of the causal link between Zika virus and microcephaly

Abstract Zika virus (ZIKV) was an emergent flavivirus transmitted by Aedes genus mosquitoes and made an explosive outbreak in Latin America in 2015. A few months later, an obvious increase in the number of microcephaly neonates has been observed, which might be related to ZIKV infection during the mothers’ pregnancy. Since then, researchers in many countries and territories have been working on the causal link between ZIKV and microcephaly and have made a number of achievements. To summarize the most recent evidence and the contribution of Chinese researchers on this issue, and to provide perspectives and challenges for future studies, we reviewed the literature of both microcephaly and ZIKV. Based on previous research results, ZIKV has been preliminarily proved to be the direct cause of microcephaly in newborns and Chinese researchers have made many important discoveries in the pathogenesis of microcephaly. Even so, future researches should also further investigate the mechanism of ZIKV-related microcephaly to advance the development of therapeutic and preventive strategies.