Brazil: Virus detected in blood banks in 3 regions – 07/03/2023 – Science

Researchers from USP (University of São Paulo) detected a little-known virus –the human gemykibivirus-2 (HuGkV-2)– in blood samples from donors in three Brazilian regions.

Although there is no evidence that this is a transfusional threat, the discovery confirms the importance of using metagenomics (a technique that analyzes all the genetic material contained in samples from a given environment, without isolating the organisms) in the field of hemotherapy. The article with the results of the study was published in the journal Transfusion and Apheresis Science.

In recent decades, emerging and re-emerging viruses that can be transmitted by hemotherapy procedures, such as blood transfusions, have been recognized as threats to public health. The most striking example is that of HIV, which causes AIDS, which emerged in the 1980s and contaminated blood derivatives in several blood banks worldwide until its effect was identified.

State-of-the-art sequencing and viral metagenome analysis are high-performance techniques that can help investigate potential threats and, therefore, become useful and viable tools in Brazil, which still lacks in-depth studies on the subject.

In a previous work, the same group of researchers, linked to the Blood Center of Ribeirão Preto, associated with the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto (FMRP-USP), had already identified the human gemykibivirus-2 by metagenomic analysis in HIV-positive blood donors and HBV (which causes type B hepatitis) from the state of Amapá. The discovery raised the hypothesis of dissemination of the viral agent also among healthy donors. The current work, which was supported by FAPESP, sought precisely to assess this prevalence.

For this, 450 samples of blood plasma from healthy donors obtained in three Brazilian regions were investigated: 150 from the Federal District, 150 from Amapá and 150 from Rio Grande do Sul.

The analysis carried out using the technique known as PCR (polymerase chain reaction, which makes it possible to amplify and sequence the nucleic acids present in a biological sample) verified the presence of the HuGkV-2 virus, still little known by the world scientific community and with no proven relation to clinical effects, but which raised concern in the scientific community in 2019, after being found in a Chinese patient with unexplained acute respiratory syndrome.

The overall prevalence of these agents in the evaluated samples was 7.78% – with 15.33% in donors from the Amazon region, 6% from the Midwest and 2% from the South.

metagenomic analysis

“It is important to remember that metagenomics detects a great abundance of viral genetic material in blood samples –a set known as the human virome–, but this does not mean that these viruses are necessarily transfusional threats”, explains Svetoslav Nanev Slavov, a researcher at the Butantan Institute , from the Blood Center of Ribeirão Preto and co-author of the study.

“For this, they need to meet several requirements, such as being proven to be pathogenic, that is, causing some disease in the blood recipient; being transmitted via transfusion; and, finally, resisting all the conditions involved in the treatment of blood products, such as, for example, the use of ultraviolet radiation.”

“The main achievements of the project are to contribute to understanding the impact of emerging viruses in blood therapy, to show the applicability of metagenomics in the area and to train Brazilian researchers to work with these methods, including next-generation sequencing”, says Slavov.

Also participating in the study were researchers from the Unieuro University Center in Brasília, the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), the Blood Center Foundation of Brasília (FHB), the Institute of Hematology and Hemotherapy of Amapá (Hemoap), the University Biomedical Campus in Rome (Italy) and the University of Brasilia (UnB).

The article Molecular identification of the emerging Human Gemykibivirus-2 (HuGkV-2) among Brazilian blood donors can be read at: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1473050222002002?via%3Dihub.