Article
The Serological Cross-Detection of Bat-Borne Hantaviruses: A Valid Strategy or Taking Chances?
Registro en:
OLIVEIRA, Renata Carvalho de et al. The Serological Cross-Detection of Bat-Borne Hantaviruses: A Valid Strategy or Taking Chances?. Viruses, v. 13, n. 7, 19 p, June 2021.
1999-4915
10.3390/v13071188
Autor
Oliveira, Renata Carvalho de
Fernandes, Jorlan
Lemos, Elba Regina Sampaio de
Conte, Fernando de Paiva
Silva, Rodrigo Nunes Rodrigues da
Resumen
Bats are hosts of a range of viruses, and their great diversity and unique characteristics
that distinguish them from all other mammals have been related to the maintenance, evolution,
and dissemination of these pathogens. Recently, very divergent hantaviruses have been discovered
in distinct species of bats worldwide, but their association with human disease remains unclear.
Considering the low success rates of detecting hantavirus RNA in bat tissues and that to date no
hantaviruses have been isolated from bat samples, immunodiagnostic tools could be very helpful to
understand pathogenesis, epidemiology, and geographic range of bat-borne hantaviruses. In this
sense, we aimed to identify in silico immunogenic B-cell epitopes present on bat-borne hantaviruses
nucleoprotein (NP) and verify if they are conserved among them and other selected members of
Mammantavirinae, using a combination of (the three most used) different prediction algorithms,
ELLIPRO, Discotope 2.0, and PEPITO server. To support our data, we in silico modeled 3D structures
of NPs from representative members of bat-borne hantaviruses, using comparative and ab initio
methods due to the absence of crystallographic structures of studied proteins or similar models in the
Protein Data Bank. Our analysis demonstrated the antigenic complexity of the bat-borne hantaviruses
group, showing a low sequence conservation of epitopes among members of its own group and a
minor conservation degree in comparison to Orthohantavirus, with a recognized importance to public
health. Our data suggest that the use of recombinant rodent-borne hantavirus NPs to cross-detect
antibodies against bat- or shrew-borne viruses could underestimate the real impact of this virus
in nature.