Characterization of placental Virome and immune transcriptome of pregnant women with Zika Virus infection and high-risk pregnancies

• Grant number: 19/18720-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): February 01, 2020
• Effective date (End): January 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Maternal and Child Health
• Principal Investigator: Maria Laura Costa do Nascimento
• Grantee: Guilherme de Moraes Nobrega
• Host Institution: Centro de Atenção Integral à Saúde da Mulher (CAISM). Hospital da Mulher Professor Doutor José Aristodemo Pinotti. Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

High-risk pregnancies are characterized when the mother, fetus, or both are at greater risk during pregnancy or childbirth than in a typical pregnancy. This scenario is usually associated with some chronic illness, syndrome, infections or complications from a previous pregnancy. Recently, such phenomena have been extremely relevant to the emergence of the Zika virus (ZIKV). These pathogens promoted major epidemics in Brazil in 2015 and 2016, showing the association between their infection during pregnancy and the development of neurological and fetal morphofunctional dysfunctions, known as Congenital Zika Syndrome. However, little is known about how this pathology and other similarly high-risk pregnancies modulate the immune system and viral microbial diversity in different placental environments, which may be associated with clinical severity. To determine these factors, stratified and standardized sampling of placental biopsies from representative groups of high-risk pregnant population will be performed, including pregnant women with preeclampsia, sickle cell disease, and arboviruses, preferably emerging virus infections. Through the technique of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) with ultra-high-throughput data, a nucleotide sequence library generated from the processing of these samples will be used for metagenomics and RNA-Seq. With these data, we intend to characterize the virome and the immune transcriptome profile in the representative placental regions obtained from high-risk pregnant women, focusing on the particularities of pregnant women infected with ZIKV, searching associations with the clinical-pathological state.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

NOBREGA, GUILHERME DE MORAES; SIQUEIRA GUIDA, JOSE PAULO; JAPECANGA, RODOLFO ROSA; ANTOLINI-TAVARES, ARTHUR; MYSOREKAR, INDIRA; COSTA, MARIA LAURA. Coleta placentária para entender infecções virais - Um protocolo simplificado para a pandemia de COVID-19. Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia, v. 43, n. 5, p. 377-383, MAY 2021. (19/18720-6)

NOBREGA, GUILHERME M.; SAMOGIM, ANA PAULA; PARISE, PIERINA L.; VENCESLAU, EMANUELLA M.; GUIDA, JOSE PAULO S.; JAPECANGA, RODOLFO R.; AMORIM, MARIENE R.; TOLEDO-TEIXEIRA, DANIEL A.; FORATO, JULIA; CONSONNI, SILVIO R.; et al. TAM and TIM receptors mRNA expression in Zika virus infected placentas. Placenta, v. 101, p. 204-207, NOV 2020. (17/26908-0, 17/22062-9, 17/02402-0, 19/18720-6, 16/00194-8)