INVESTIGATION OF THE BACTERIAL AND VIRAL DIVERSITY OF DIDELPHID OPOSSUMS FROM BRAZILIAN FOREST FRAGMENTS

The marsupials Didelphis albiventris and Didelphis aurita are common in all of their area of distribution in Brazil and adapt to urban areas and secondary forests.The baseline oral and gut microbiome of healthy opossums captured in the Southeastern region of Brazil is described here. We identified bacteria genera involved in zoonotic diseases and virus families that can be targets for future epidemiological surveys.The detection of zoonotic pathogens in such abundant mammal species warns for the possibility of emergence in other species, specially when their ecological niches overlap naturally or due to fragmentation.