Targeting the endoplasmic reticulum to characterize monkeypox disease.

• Grant number: 25/04357-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: November 01, 2025
• End date: October 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Carsten Wrenger
• Grantee: Deivid Martins Santos
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/07746-0 - Drug discovery against human viral infectious diseases, AP.TEM

Abstract

Since the first report of monkeypox infection in 1970, increasing cases of human infection was reported and gained a worldwide concern in 2022, when monkeypox virus (MPXV) passed through the African borders and landed in non-endemic continents like America, Europe and Asia. In Brazil, monkeypox cases was reported during the 2022 outbreak, being the second most affected country in the world with more than nine thousand confirmed cases, most of them in São Paulo city. Although it has passed more than fifty years since the MPXV discovery, there are a lot of gaps of knowledge regarding the virus pathogenesis that have to be filled as soon as possible due to the potential epidemiological power reported in the past years in non-endemic areas. Furthermore, smallpox vaccination discontinuation resulted in a new generation of population more susceptible to severe clinical manifestation of the disease, increasing the urge for the development of strategies that inhibits the virus spread and protects the individuals under risk. In this context, this project aims to perform a mass spectrometry-based characterization of skin and lung cells infected with monkeypox virus isolated in Brazil during the 2022 outbreak, analyzing the proteostasis status of the infected cells and the role of the endoplasmic reticulum for the virus' pathogenesis and as a target to test new chemical treatments against monkeypox.