Descripción del proyecto
POSITIVE-SENSE, SINGLE-STRANDED RNA VIRUSES CAUSE SEVERAL OF THE MOST PREVALENT DISEASES OF VIRAL ETIOLOGY. THESE INCLUDE HEPATITIS C VIRUS (HCV), WHICH INFECTS MORE THAN 70 MILLION HUMANS WORLDWIDE AND KILLS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS PEOPLE EACH YEAR, OR THE MOSQUITO-TRANSMITTED FLAVIVIRUS DENGUE (DENV), WHICH INFECT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS WORLDWIDE FOR WHICH, UNLIKE FOR HCV, ANTIVIRAL DRUGS ARE NOT AVAILABLE. AUTOCHTHONOUS CASES OF DENV IN SPAIN, FRANCE AND CROATIA IN RECENT YEARS HAVE RAISED THE CONCERNS FOR A POTENTIAL RE-EMERGENCE OF DENGUE IN EUROPE. PROJECTED MODELS, BASED ON PREDICTED ALTERATIONS OF CLIMATIC PARAMETERS, INDICATE THAT THE NUMBER OF AUTOCHTHONOUS INFECTIONS BY DENGUE AND OTHER ARBOVIRUSES WILL INCREASE SIGNIFICANTLY IN FUTURE YEARS AS VIRAL VECTORS BECOME ENDEMIC IN SOUTHERN EUROPE. DURING 2020, ANOTHER ZOONOTIC FLAVIVIRUS, THE WEST NILE VIRUS (WNV), CAUSED 316 INFECTIONS (77 IN SPAIN) AND 37 DEATHS AND MADE EXPLICIT THE FACT THAT WNV IS CIRCULATING IN EUROPE, MAINLY IN EQUIDS AND BIRDS, AND THAT ONLY A VERY TIGHT CONTROL OF THE VECTOR POPULATION IS PREVENTING MORE OF THESE OUTBREAKS. THE CURRENT SARS-COV-2 PANDEMIC IS PRODUCING A MAJOR BIOMEDICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CRISIS WORLDWIDE WITH MORE THAN 67 MILLION CONFIRMED CASES AND MORE THAN 1.5 MILLION DEATHS SINCE THE WUHAN OUTBREAK IN DECEMBER 2019. THIS PANDEMIC IS CAUSED BY ANOTHER (+)-STRAND RNA VIRUS, WHICH EFFICIENTLY PROPAGATES THROUGH THE HUMAN POPULATION AND WAS ORIGINALLY GENERATED FROM A ZOONOTIC RESERVOIR 1.THEREFORE, GENERATING BASIC KNOWLEDGE THAT APPLIES TO DIFFERENT VIRUS FAMILIES CAUSING DISEASE IN HUMANS IS OF GREAT RELEVANCE IN ORDER TO INCREASE OUR PREPAREDNESS TO FIGHT AGAINST THESE, AND A GROWING NUMBER OF POTENTIAL ZOONOTIC VIRUSES. THE CURRENT PROPOSAL AIMS AT CONSOLIDATING PRELIMINARY DATA THAT HAVE BEEN GENERATED IN OUR LABORATORY IN RECENT YEARS WHEN STUDYING THE PRO-VIRAL FUNCTIONS OF A HOST FACTOR, SIGMAR1, DISCOVERED AS A POTENTIAL MOLECULAR TARGET FOR ANTIVIRAL THERAPY AGAINST HEPATITIS C VIRUS, THAT WE IDENTIFIED TO BE RATE LIMITING FOR THE INFECTION BY OTHER (+)-STRAND RNA VIRUSES, INCLUDING FLAVIRUSES (ZIKA, DENGUE AND WEST NILE) OR CORONAVIRUSES (SARS-COV-2). THE CURRENT PROPOSAL AIMS AT STUDYING THIS HOST FACTOR TO PULL THE THREAD ON DECIPHERING COMMON MOLECULAR MECHANISMS INVOLVED IN RATE-LIMITING STEPS OF INFECTION BY A BROAD RANGE OF HUMAN PATHOGENS. THIS PLAN ALSO CONSIDERS THE BENEFIT OF USING VIRUSES AS MOLECULAR PROBES TO STUDY BASIC ASPECTS OF CELL BIOLOGY INVOLVING A GENETIC DETERMINANT OF IMPORTANT NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES. IRUS PATOGENOS\NEUROTROPIC\PROTEOSTASIS\SIGMA-1