[afro-nets] Brazilian study on Leptospira is published in SciELO

[Agnes Soares <Soares@NWO.NL>]

Brazilian study on Leptospira is published in SciELO
----------------------------------------------------
 
Dear All,
 
below you will find a message sent by BIREME ? Latin America and 
Caribbean Center for Health Sciences Information about an impor-
tant conquest for National sciences in Brazil, the genomic se-
quence of the Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni, that 
is being published full text online by ScieLO. 
 
Because it is a very important scientific finding that is made 
completely available online thanks to the success of of SciELO ? 
Scientific Electronic Library Online, a BIREME developed project 
in collaboration with FAPESP - The State of São Paulo Research 
Foundation, I would like to ask you to reproduce the good news 
on the mailing lists and news servers that you might have ac-
cess. 
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Agnes Soares, MD, MPH 
SHARED - Scientists for Health and Research for Development 
NWO/IB - The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research / 
Department of International Relations 
P.O. Box 93120 
2509 AC The Hague
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-70-3440-849
Fax: +31-70-3819-874
mailto:soares@nwo.nl 
 
--
Brazilian study on Leptospira is published in SciELO
 
The genomic sequence of the bacterium that causes leptospirosis 
stands out in the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological 
Research.
 
The genomic sequencing of the bacterium Leptospira interrogans 
serovar Copenhageni, carried out by a partnership of specialists 
from Instituto Butantã, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz da Bahia and uni-
versities of São Paulo, has just been published in the Brazilian 
Journal of Medical and Biological Research (BJMBR). The full 
text will be available for free, in the web, in SciELO Network 
(Scientific Library Eletronic Online).
 
Approximately R$ 800,000 reals were invested by Onsa Network - 
FAPESP (The State of São Paulo Research Foundation) in the pro-
ject, resulting in a relevant work of genomic sequencing of the 
bacterium Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni, which is 
responsible for a severe form of leptospirosis, particularly in 
urban areas in Brazil. The article was praised by specialists 
who assess studies submitted to Nature Genetics (a journal of 
the Nature Publishing Group). It was not published in that jour-
nal because a similar study performed by Chinese scientists had 
been submitted for publication four months before. 
 
The Brazilian study opens the doors to assess 23 candidate pro-
teins to be used in a vaccine against leptospirosis. It stands 
out when published by one of the most qualified Brazilian scien-
tific journals - the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological 
Research (BJMBR). The article will be available to scientists 
all over the world through SciELO Network (Scientific Library 
Eletronic Online). On April 6, 2004, Tuesday, the publication 
was announced to the scientific community.
 
"Our sequencing is more complete as compared to the Chinese 
study, particularly in relation to serovar Copenhageni, which is 
predominant in Brazil", states Ana Lúcia Tabet Oller do Nasci-
mento, based at Instituto Butantã and coordinator of the pro-
ject. There are approximately 250 distinct serovars of the bac-
terium and their identification is crucial to prepare a vaccine. 
The sequencing in China was based on serovar Lai, which is typi-
cal of flooded areas with rice plantations.
 
Publishing the full article in the Brazilian journal may be con-
sidered a conquest for national sciences. The team of research-
ers involved in the project had to perform another comparative 
study on Copenhageni and Lai genomes to be published in the 
Journal of Bacteriology. However, many important conclusions 
drawn from the original study were not included. "Since we pub-
lished in the BJMBR, we could retrieve relevant data, such as a 
complete description of proteins that may be used in the vac-
cine", said Ana Lúcia.
 
BJMBR is a journal published by Associação Brasileira de Divul-
gação Científica and indexed by the Institute for Scientific In-
formation (ISI - www.isinet.com). ISI has the main database of 
international scientific publications and statistics adopted by 
the scientific community worldwide. Moreover, BJMBR is the third 
journal more often accessed in the free full text database of 
SciELO (www.scielo.org). Since it has been published, this arti-
cle on sequencing of L.interrogans will be available as a full 
text, with free access in the web, unlike the Chinese study.
 
According to Ana Lúcia, the project includes some information on 
leptospira breaking some metabolic paradigms. L.interrogans has 
an effective metabolic control that enables it to survive in 
hostile environments (outside the host, for example) for some 
days, which is considered a long period for bacteria. "However, 
the main feature of the project is that it was completely di-
rected at one purpose: vaccine production. The results aims at 
identifying candidate proteins", emphasizes Ana Lúcia.
 
Today, the strain Copenhageni is chiefly responsible for the in-
cidence of leptospirosis in Brazil. Data from Fundação Nacional 
de Saúde (Funasa) show 46,180 cases of the disease were notified 
in the country, from 1987 to 2001, and mortality ranged from 
6.5% to 20%. In the State of São Paulo, there were roughly 8,000 
cases and 1,141 deaths from 1986 to 2000.
 
The most frequent symptoms of leptospirosis are fever, headache, 
chills, vomiting, nausea and malaise. If not treated, the bacte-
ria may affect the kidneys and liver and, in more severe cases, 
it may cause death. In Brazil, the disease has an urban charac-
teristic. In cities, the individuals may be contaminated when in 
contact with flooded water or in areas with accumulated garbage 
and open sewage. The main agent of contamination is rat´s urine 
(Rattus norvegicus) present in sewage.
 
About SciELO
 
The Scientific Eletronic Library Online (SciELO) is a model for 
cooperative electronic publishing of scientific journals in the 
web. It was specially developed to meet the needs of the scien-
tific community in developing countries, particularly in Latin 
America and the Caribbean. SciELO assures visibility and univer-
sal access to scientific literature, and contributes to overcome 
the phenomenon known as "lost science". SciELO Model is a prod-
uct of the cooperation between FAPESP (http://www.fapesp.br) - 
The State of São Paulo Research Foundation, BIREME 
(http://www.bireme.org) - The Latin American and Caribbean Cen-
ter on Health Sciences Information, and scientific editors.
 
The full article may be accessed as of April 6, 2004, at:
http://www.scielo.br/bjmbr/leptospira
 
Patricia Camargo
Communication Office
Projects, Marketing and Inovation
mailto:camargop@biremeops-oms.org
BIREME/PAHO/WHO
http://www.bireme.org