Study on zoonotic viruses in wild mammals

• Grant number: 22/12302-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: February 01, 2023
• End date: July 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Tadeu Moraes Figueiredo
• Grantee: Luiz Tadeu Moraes Figueiredo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Renan Bressianini do Amaral

Abstract

This 2-year Research Project, at a cost of R$ 196,000.00 aims to capture small mammals (wild rodents, marsupials and bats) and primates in specific locations, making their taxonomic identification and collecting clinical samples. For that, the animals will be captured in the biome of Cerrado, the animal capture areas will be multiple and in distant locations up to more than 200Km. All captured animals will be identified and will have blood samples collected in addition to other clinical samples such as urine and feces. Also some animals (rodents, marsupials and bats) will be euthanized and their organs will be collected for viral research. We expect to analyze material from at least 500 wild animals.The ecological characteristics of the capture sites of the studied animals will be determined. At the Virology Research Center, School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo in Ribeirao Preto, the animals' blood will have their nucleic acids extracted and submitted to SYBR Green real-time RT-PCRs for Alphavirus, Flavivirus, Bunyavirus, Arenavirus and COVID19. The amplicons obtained will be sequenced by the Sanger method and the sequences will be identified and arranged in phylogenetic trees. Viral samples that demonstrate relevance will have their complete genomes sequenced in an Illumina Novaseq 6000 (PE 150). The viral nucleotide sequences will be deposited in GenBank and their accession numbers will be made available. In addition, clinical materials with positive RT-PCR for the viruses studied will have viruses isolated in a biosafety level 3 laboratory, by inoculation into monolayers of C6/36 or VERO cells. In short, we hope that the results obtained with our Research Project can expand the knowledge about the genetic and biological diversity of zoonotic viruses in Brazil and that they can even anticipate the eventual emergence of these viruses, before they produce human outbreaks and become a problem of public health. (AU)