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Zika virus has been detected in dead monkeys found in Brazil near São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo State, and Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The animals had been shot or beaten to death by locals who thought they had yellow fever. In fact, the monkeys were not bearers of that disease, but infection by Zika virus had made them sick and more vulnerable to attack by humans. "The discovery shows the potential exists for Zika to establish a sylvatic transmission cycle [involving wild animals] in [...]

A lineage of type 1 dengue virus found in Brazil is able to prevail over another even though it multiplies less in vector mosquitoes and infected human cells. This discovery was made under the scope of a Thematic Project supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP involving several Brazilian institutions as well as a university in the United States. According to the study, the lineage activates a weaker immune response in the patient and is less strongly combated. As a result, the [...]

A novel laboratory-synthesized molecule based in natural compounds found in marine gliding bacteria – known as marinoquinolines – is a strong candidate for the development of a new antimalarial drug. In tests, the molecule proved capable of killing even the strain that resists conventional antimalarials. The molecule displays low toxicity and high selectivity, acting only on the parasite and not on other cells of the host organism. The molecule was developed in Brazil at the Center for [...]

The strategy used by the Oropouche virus to replicate in human cells has been described for the first time by researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil and international collaborators in an article published in the journal PLOS Pathogens. According to the study, shortly after invading the cell, the pathogen "hijacks" an organelle called the Golgi complex, which becomes a veritable virus factory. The virus does this by recruiting host cell protein complexes known as ESCRT [...]

In an article published recently in the journal Nature Communications, researchers affiliated with the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil describe the central role played by an enzyme called phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase gamma (PI3Kγ) in regulating the immune response against Trypanosoma cruzi, the protozoan parasite that causes Chagas disease. "Our results show that the expression of PI3Kγ increases during infection by T. cruzi in both mice and humans. This appears to be essential to [...]

A platform that can diagnose several diseases with a high degree of precision using metabolic markers found in patients' blood has been developed by scientists at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. The method combines mass spectrometry, which can identify tens of thousands of molecules present in blood serum, with an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of finding patterns associated with diseases of viral, bacterial, fungal and even genetic origin. The research was [...]

A Brazilian study published April 26 in the journal Cancer Research shows for the first time in vivo that Zika virus can be used as a tool to treat aggressive human central nervous system (CNS) tumors.After injecting small amounts of the pathogen into the brains of mice with an advanced stage of the disease, the scientists observed a significant reduction in tumor mass and an increase in survival. In some cases, the tumor was completely eliminated, even where the disease had metastasized to the [...]

A study conducted at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil shows that triclosan, an antimicrobial compound used in soap, toothpaste, deodorant and many other products, can inhibit target genes in the malaria parasite during two crucial stages of its lifecycle in humans -- the hepatic stage, when it reproduces in the host's liver cells, and the erythrocytic stage, when it infects red blood cells. The study was supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP and conducted in [...]

Neural progenitor cells (NPC) derived from congenital Zika syndrome (CZS) affected and non-affected twins show different rates of virus infection and different RNA expression of genes associated to neural development. The expression imbalance happens even before the infection with the Zika virus in vitro. These results confirm the hypothesis of a genetic or epigenetic influence on susceptibility to CZS and microcephaly. The findings were published in Nature Communications on Feb. 2, 2018. The [...]