Gomard Yann, Dietrich Muriel, Wieseke Nicolas, Ramasindrazana Beza, Lagadec Erwan, Goodman Steven M, Dellagi Koussay, Tortosa Pablo
Centre for Research and Surveillance of Emerging Diseases in the Indian Ocean (CRVOI), 97490 Sainte Clotilde, La Réunion, France UMR PIMIT, 'Infectious Processes in Insular Ecosystems', University of La Réunion, INSERM U 1187, CNRS 9192, IRD 249. Research platform of CYROI, 97490 Sainte Clotilde, La Réunion, France.
Centre for Research and Surveillance of Emerging Diseases in the Indian Ocean (CRVOI), 97490 Sainte Clotilde, La Réunion, France Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa.
FEMS Microbiol Ecol. 2016 Apr;92(4):fiw037. doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiw037. Epub 2016 Feb 21.
Pathogenic Leptospira are the causative agents of leptospirosis, a disease of global concern with major impact in tropical regions. Despite the importance of this zoonosis for human health, the evolutionary and ecological drivers shaping bacterial communities in host reservoirs remain poorly investigated. Here, we describe Leptospira communities hosted by Malagasy bats, composed of mostly endemic species, in order to characterize host-pathogen associations and investigate their evolutionary histories. We screened 947 individual bats (representing 31 species, 18 genera and seven families) for Leptospira infection and subsequently genotyped positive samples using three different bacterial loci. Molecular identification showed that these Leptospira are notably diverse and include several distinct lineages mostly belonging to Leptospira borgpetersenii and L. kirschneri. The exploration of the most probable host-pathogen evolutionary scenarios suggests that bacterial genetic diversity results from a combination of events related to the ecology and the evolutionary history of their hosts. Importantly, based on the data set presented herein, the notable host-specificity we have uncovered, together with a lack of geographical structuration of bacterial genetic diversity, indicates that the Leptospira community at a given site depends on the co-occurring bat species assemblage. The implications of such tight host-specificity on the epidemiology of leptospirosis are discussed.
致病性钩端螺旋体是钩端螺旋体病的病原体，钩端螺旋体病是一种全球关注的疾病，在热带地区影响重大。尽管这种人畜共患病对人类健康很重要，但塑造宿主储库中细菌群落的进化和生态驱动因素仍未得到充分研究。在这里，我们描述了马达加斯加蝙蝠所携带的钩端螺旋体群落，该群落主要由特有物种组成，目的是表征宿主与病原体的关联并研究它们的进化历史。我们对947只个体蝙蝠（代表31个物种、18个属和7个科）进行了钩端螺旋体感染筛查，随后使用三个不同的细菌基因座对阳性样本进行基因分型。分子鉴定表明，这些钩端螺旋体具有显著的多样性，包括几个不同的谱系，大多属于波摩那钩端螺旋体和克氏钩端螺旋体。对最可能的宿主-病原体进化情景的探索表明，细菌遗传多样性是与其宿主的生态和进化历史相关的多种事件共同作用的结果。重要的是，基于本文提供的数据集，我们发现的显著宿主特异性以及细菌遗传多样性缺乏地理结构，表明特定地点的钩端螺旋体群落取决于同时存在的蝙蝠物种组合。我们还讨论了这种紧密的宿主特异性对钩端螺旋体病流行病学的影响。
