UW researchers awarded grant to study cure for devastating bat disease

Vaccine, drug research reveals promising treatment methods for white nose syndrome

by Lydia Larsen Science News Editor

In the past decade, the fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome has decimated bat populations in Wisconsin and across the country. March 22, University of Wisconsin researchers, in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S Geological disease progression, bats wake up every three to five days instead of the normal 15 to 20 day cycle.

This accelerated cycle causes the bats to burn up the fat reserves they built up over the summer. The bats also leave their hibernation caves, which maintain a warmer, steadier temperature through the winter. When the bats different fungus that causes blastomycosis, a rare disease that’s caused by breathing in the fungus Blastomyces dermatitidis.

While Klein’s lab was studying how B. dermatitidis interacts with mammalian cells, they found a component of the fungus that helps it infect mammals. After developing a vaccine for B. dermatitidis, they then identified at other sites.

Klein and Marcos Isidoro-Ayza, a graduate student in his lab, will collaborate with scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S Geological Survey on the newly awarded grant. Isidoro-Ayza developed a model system that mimics how cells in bat skin tissue behave during hibernation to research epidemiologist Tonie Rocke said.

“[White-nose syndrome] first hit Wisconsin in 2014, so our bats are quite naive to this disease,” Rocke said. “They’re very much affected by it.”

White-nose syndrome also causes behavioral changes in the bats, which are often fatal. Normally, cave bats spend six to eight months of the year underground. Infected bats wake up from hibernation earlier and with greater frequency. White said early in the develop some coping mechanisms against the disease, it’s still important to stop the spread. People shouldn’t enter caves where bats are hibernating during the winter months. When traveling between sites where bats hibernate, people shouldn’t wear the same clothes or use the same equipment, White said.

While stopping the spread is important, researchers are also developing a vaccine against white-nose syndrome. Klein didn’t set out to find a cure, but his lab was studying a

Health Center, and they worked to develop a vaccine for white-nose syndrome, Klein said.

They tested the vaccine in laboratory trials and found that the vaccinated bats developed white-nose syndrome at lower rates than nonvaccinated bats, Rocke said.

These results were promising enough that in 2019 they started vaccinating bats in the wild. While Rocke is still analyzing the results of the field study, she said the study outcomes are positive, and the team is now vaccinating bats equipment. White attributes the high levels of interest in bats to how ubiquitous they are in so many environments. At White’s presentations, people always seem to have a bat story to share.

“It just seemed like it didn’t matter whether you were red, blue, purple,” White said. “There was definitely an understanding that bats did something on the landscape, and the people were appreciative of it.”