Zika virus (ZIKV) has rapidly spread in Micronesia, French Polynesia, and the Americas, and has recently been shown to cross the placental barrier12 to infect the developing fetal brain, leading to neurodevelopmental diseases such as microcephaly3456 . The long-term impact on these patients' lives, and the current lack of treatment, has led researchers and clinicians to scramble for a better understanding of the mechanisms behind ZIKV infection and replication. Previous studies have examined ZIKV infection of in vitro systems in a variety of physiologically-relevant cell types789, as well as in vivo10 with immunocompetent and immunocompromised mice111213 and non-human primates141516. In addition to these more conventional techniques, several groups have implemented stem cell-derived cerebral organoids to understand more about ZIKV infection of the developing human brain. These groups have utilized human cerebral organoids to confirm the microcephaly phenotype1718, investigate receptors linked to virus entry19, examine physiological responses to infection2021, and potentially screen for drug candidates22. Here a technique for rapidly producing and infecting stem-cell derived cerebral organoids is described, as shown previously19, to improve the understanding of ZIKV infection of the developing human brain.
