Team from the University of Padua, partner of INF-ACT, participated in the discovery that can change the prevention strategies of this infectious disease. Study published in Nature Microbiology
Padua, 10 April 2024 – No outbreaks have yet been recorded in Italy, but the virus is presumably already present in our country and is slowly spreading in Europe. A feared virus, that of the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, which can be lethal in up to 40% of cases and which the WHO considers one of the infectious diseases of priority importance and with pandemic potential.
Today, however, it is less scary thanks to the study “Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever virus uses LDLR to bind and enter host cells” published on Nature Microbiology where the receptor that allows the virus to enter the cells was identified.
“The discovery has the potential to change the strategies to combat this hemorrhagic fever: by knowing how the virus interacts with proteins to enter the cell, we will be able to discover how to deactivate the mechanism. In practice we now know the lock and key that the virus uses to infect cells – explains Cristiano Salata, professor of Microbiology and Virology at the Department of Molecular Medicine of the University of Padua, part of the INF-ACT network – It was the result of an important international collaboration, in which we contributed by allowing the identification of the receptor, a receptor which was then shown to work both with laboratory model viruses and with viruses isolated from patients, and with those isolated from ticks”.
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever is the second most common vector-borne hemorrhagic fever after dengue. It is a viral pathology transmitted by ticks of this genus Hyalomma, which infest both wild mammals and birds, as well as livestock. In Europe, human infections have been recorded in Spain and the Balkans, while Turkey is among the main epicenters of the disease.
“In Italy there have not yet been any cases of human infection, but it is considered a country at high risk of introducing the disease. Although no infected ticks have been found at the moment, cattle have been identified in Basilicata that had antibodies against the virus, suggesting circulation of the virus between animals. This pushed us to join forces between various bodies belonging to INF-ACT for a more meticulous search for the virus in Italian territory”, continues Cristiano Salata.
“We are reaping the fruits of the collaboration network created precisely to prepare Italy for possible epidemic dangers – says Federico Forneris, president of the INF-ACT Foundation – With satisfaction I see that the nodes are strengthening. In this area, for example, thanks to joint work between Salata’s group at the University of Padua and that of Domenico Otranto, full professor of parasitic diseases of animals at the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Bari, both partner universities of INF-ACT, we collaborate in the monitoring of the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus in Basilicata, where the presence of antibodies against the virus in domestic mammals has been recorded”.
“Furthermore, with the support of the network of zooprophylactic institutes, the monitoring activity has also been extended to the North-East, thanks to Fabrizio Montarsi and colleagues of the Istituto Zooprophylattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, to the Centre, thanks to Ilaria Pascucci and colleagues of Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Umbria and Marche, and the Islands, thanks to Giovanna Masala and colleagues of the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Sardinia”, concludes Forneris.
