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Bacterial and Viral Diversity of Didelphid Opossums from Brazil

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Abstract

Marsupials belonging to the Didelphis genus are widely distributed in the American Continent, and Didelphis albiventris and Didelphis aurita, are common in all of their areas of distribution in Brazil. Here we describe the bacterial and viral diversity of samples from opossums captured in three forest fragments in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Microbiomes from the same body site were more similar across species and sampling sites while oral swabs presented higher bacterial diversity than rectal swabs. We also identified sequences related to bacterial species involved in zoonotic diseases. The detection of pathogens in such abundant mammal species warns for the possibility of emergence in other species.

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Data Availability

These sequencing data have been submitted to the SRA repository, under bioproject PRJNA613851.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology Laboratory CNPEM/MCTIC NGS Sequencing Facility for generating the sequencing data described here. We also thank Thomaz Henrique Barrella (Fundação José Pedro de Oliveira, Mata de Santa Genebra), Márcia Gonçalves Rodrigues (ICMBio) and Angela Podolsky for providing access to the forest fragments and help in fieldwork. This work was funded by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil (Grant Number 870370/1997-9 and scholarship number 154978/2016-7). This work was also financed in part by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil—Finance Code 001 and Fundação de Amparo à pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil (Grant Number 2014/50696-4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Genética, Evolução, Microbiologia e Imunologia, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas – UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil

    Leonardo Cardia Caserta, Gabriela Mansano do Nascimento, Michael E. Miller & Clarice Weis Arns

  2. Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, 240 Farrier Road, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Leonardo Cardia Caserta, Gabriela Mansano do Nascimento, Lok Raj Joshi & Diego G. Diel

  3. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Epidemiologia Experimental Aplicada às Zoonoses, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ-USP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Raphael Mausbach Simão

  4. Departamento de Proteção e Bem-Estar Animal - Prefeitura de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Paulo A. Nunes Felippe

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  1. Leonardo Cardia Caserta
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  2. Gabriela Mansano do Nascimento
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  3. Lok Raj Joshi
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  7. Diego G. Diel
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Correspondence to Leonardo Cardia Caserta.

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Cardia Caserta, L., Mansano do Nascimento, G., Joshi, L.R. et al. Bacterial and Viral Diversity of Didelphid Opossums from Brazil. EcoHealth 20, 362–369 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-023-01667-2

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