Publications by authors named "Natasha De Oliveira"

Vaccination is essential for maintaining animal health, with priority placed on safety and cost effectiveness in veterinary use. The development of recombinant live-attenuated vaccines (RASVs) has enabled the construction of balanced lethal systems, ensuring the stability of plasmid vectors encoding protective antigens post-immunization. These vaccines are particularly suitable for production animals, providing long-term immunity against a range of bacterial, viral, and parasitic pathogens.

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Rodents are commonly used as animal models in studies investigating various experimental conditions, often requiring gene expression analysis. Quantitative real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) is the most widely used tool to quantify target gene expression levels under different experimental conditions in various biological samples. Relative normalization with reference genes is a crucial step in RT-qPCR to obtain reliable quantification results.

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Background: The development of therapies and vaccines for various diseases often necessitates the analysis of cellular immunity. However, unlike other rodents, the limited availability of reagents for Syrian hamsters restricts immunological analysis, particularly in the determination of serum effector molecules such as cytokines. In this study, we aim to produce and characterize the cytokines IFN-γ, TGF-β, IL-6, IL-10, and TNF-α from Syrian hamsters in recombinant form and to generate polyclonal antibodies against them in rats.

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Leptospirosis, a neglected zoonotic disease, is caused by pathogenic spirochetes belonging to the genus Leptospira and has one of the highest morbidity and mortality rates worldwide. Vaccination stands out as one of the most effective preventive measures for susceptible populations. Within the outer membrane of Leptospira spp.

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Whole-cell inactivated vaccines (bacterins) are the only licensed vaccines available for leptospirosis prevention and control, especially in domestic and farm animals. However, despite their widespread use, inconsistencies in their efficacy have been reported. Because immunity induced by bacterins is mainly mediated by antibodies against leptospiral lipopolysaccharides, the involvement of cellular responses is not well-known.

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In the last 20 years, various research groups have endeavored to develop recombinant vaccines against leptospirosis to overcome the limitations of commercially available bacterins. Numerous antigens and vaccine formulations have been tested thus far. However, the analysis of cellular response in these vaccine formulations is not commonly conducted, primarily due to the scarcity of supplies and kits for the hamster animal model.

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The first leptospiral recombinant vaccine was developed in the late 1990s. Since then, progress in the fields of reverse vaccinology (RV) and structural vaccinology (SV) has significantly improved the identification of novel surface-exposed and conserved vaccine targets. However, developing recombinant vaccines for leptospirosis faces various challenges, including selecting the ideal expression platform or delivery system, assessing immunogenicity, selecting adjuvants, establishing vaccine formulation, demonstrating protective efficacy against lethal disease in homologous challenge, achieving full renal clearance using experimental models, and reproducibility of protective efficacy against heterologous challenge.

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Dogs are highly susceptible to leptospirosis and are a public health concern due to their important role as a source of spreading disease, particularly in urban settings. In this study, we present the pathogenesis, serological characterization, and complete genome sequencing of a virulent Brazilian strain (NEG7) of serovar Copenhageni isolated from the urine of a dog that died due to acute leptospirosis. Clinical investigation showed that the dog was presented with icteric mucous membranes, weakness, dehydration, anorexia, and kidney and liver failures.

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Leptospirosis is a neglected disease of man and animals that affects nearly half a million people annually and causes considerable economic losses. Current human vaccines are inactivated whole-cell preparations (bacterins) of spp. that provide strong homologous protection yet fail to induce a cross-protective immune response.

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Unlabelled: The incidence of syphilis has increased alarmingly over the years. Its diagnosis continues to be a challenge, leading to the search for new alternative and effective methods. The objective of this study was to select and evaluate three recombinant proteins for potential use in syphilis serodiagnosis.

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Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic species of Leptospira. Due to the similarity with clinical signs of other febrile diseases, early diagnosis remains challenging. Real-time PCR has been used for direct detection of Leptospira, but it requires thermocyclers and highly trained personnel.

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Leptospirosis is a bacterial zoonotic disease with significant impact on health all over the world. Currently, bacterins are the only vaccines available for prevention of this disease, despite several drawbacks. In an effort to develop a more effective vaccine against leptospirosis, reverse and structural vaccinology have been applied to design recombinant constructions composed of leptospiral surface-exposed antigens.

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Background: Large-scale epidemiological studies of seroprevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 often rely on point-of-care tests that provide immediate results to participants. Yet, little is known on how long rapid tests remain positive after the COVID-19 episode, or how much variability exists across different brands and even among batches of the same test.

Methods: In November 2020, we assessed the sensitivity of three tests applied to 133 individuals with a previous positive PCR result between April and October.

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The occurrence of multidrug-resistant Serratia marcescens strains represents a serious public health threat. The purpose here is to report three cases of carbapenem-resistant S. marcescens infections with unfavorable clinical outcomes and provide a molecular description of the antibiotic resistance determinants at a genomic level.

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Leptospirosis has been widely reported in insular environments worldwide, characterizing a major public health threat. Although low-genetic biodiversity is expected in these regions, the introduction of domestic and synanthropic mammals may contribute to the wider diversity of leptospiral strains in insular settings. This study proposes a large-scale seroepidemiological investigation of Leptospira infection in animals from Fernando de Noronha archipelago and describes the characterization of the first leptospiral strain ever isolated from an insular setting in Brazil.

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Leptospirosis is a widespread zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic spirochetes of the genus Leptospira. The commercially available vaccines are bacterins that offer limited protection, short-term effect, and serovar-specific immunity. The development of novel immunization strategies is crucial to control the infection and decrease the chances of new outbreaks.

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Campylobacter jejuni is the most common bacterial cause of foodborne diarrheal disease worldwide and is among the antimicrobial resistant "priority pathogens" that pose greatest threat to public health. The genomes of two C. jejuni isolated from poultry meat sold on the retail market in Southern Brazil phenotypically characterized as multidrug-resistant (CJ100) and susceptible (CJ104) were sequenced and analyzed by bioinformatic tools.

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Canine leptospirosis is often caused by Leptospira interrogans serovar Canicola. Infected dogs may become asymptomatic carriers of the pathogen, which leads to many public health concerns. In this work, we present the complete genome sequencing and in silico analysis from a virulent Brazilian strain of L.

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is a gram positive bacterium with sporulation capacity. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of two native strains (#25 and #29) isolated from intestinal tract of the crab sp. from Pacoti River in the State of Ceará, Brazil.

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Background: Leptospirosis is an emerging zoonosis attributed to multiple reservoirs. Climatic conditions influence the transmission of pathogenic leptospires, which require warm and humid conditions for survival. The influence of seasonality in human and animal leptospirosis in the subtropical region of Brazil remains poorly understood.

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Enzootic Pneumonia (EP) is caused by the Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae pathogenic bacteria, and it represents a significant respiratory disease that is responsible for major economic losses within the pig industry throughout the world. The bacterins that are currently commercially available have been proven to offer only partial protection against M. hyopneumoniae, and the development of more efficient vaccines is required.

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Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic spirochetes from the genus Leptospira, which includes 20 species and more than 300 serovars. Canines are important hosts of pathogenic leptospires and can transmit the pathogen to humans via infected urine. Here, we report the phenotypic and molecular characterization of Leptospira interrogans isolated from Canis familiaris in Southern Brazil.

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Enzootic pneumonia (EP), resulting from Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae infection is one of the most prevalent diseases in pigs and is a major cause of economic losses to the swine industry worldwide. EP is often controlled by vaccination with inactivated, adjuvanted whole-cell bacterin. However, these bacterins provide only partial protection and do not prevent M.

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The current concept of paraphrenia has its historical origins in Emil Kraepelin's work. Several factors, however, contributed to the fading out of this disorder, namely the follow-up study of W. Mayer, the influences of Bleuler and of some related concepts, such as Roth's late paraphrenia.

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