Shared Molecular Signatures Across Zika Virus Infection and Multiple Sclerosis Highlight AP-1 Transcription Factor as a Potential Player in Post-ZIKV MS-Like Phenotypes

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an arbovirus of the Flaviviridae genus that has rapidly disseminated from across the Pacific to the Americas. Robust evidence has indicated a crucial role of ZIKV in congenital virus syndrome, including neonatal microcephaly. Moreover, emerging evidence suggests an association between ZIKV infection and the development of an extensive spectrum of central nervous system inflammatory demyelinating diseases (CNS IDD), such as multiple sclerosis–like clinical phenotypes. However, the underlying mechanisms of host-pathogen neuro-immune interactions remain to be elucidated. This study aimed to identify common transcriptional signatures between multiple sclerosis (MS) and ZIKV infection to generate molecular interaction networks, thereby leading to the identification of deregulated processes and pathways, which could give an insight of these underlying molecular mechanisms. Our investigation included publicly available transcriptomic data from MS patients in either relapse or remission (RR-MS) and datasets of subjects acutely infected by ZIKV for both immune peripheral cells and central nervous system cells. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis showed upregulated AP-1 transcription factors ( JUN and FOS ) among the top hub and bottleneck genes in RR-MS and ZIKV data. Gene enrichment analysis retrieved a remarkable presence of ontologies and pathways linked to oxidative stress responses, immune cell function, inflammation, interleukin signaling, cell division, and transcriptional regulation commonly enriched in both scenarios. Considering the recent findings concerning AP-1 function in immunological tolerance breakdown, regulation of inflammation, and its function as an oxidative stress sensor, we postulate that the ZIKV trigger may contribute as a boost for the activation of such AP-1-regulated mechanisms that could favor the development of MS-like phenotypes following ZIKV infection in a genetically susceptible individual.