Department of Muscle Cell Research, Centre of Biosciences, Institute of Molecular Physiology and Genetics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Department of Ecology and Diseases of Game, Fish and Bees, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, Brno, Czech Republic.
Transbound Emerg Dis. 2018 Apr;65(2):303-308. doi: 10.1111/tbed.12773. Epub 2017 Nov 27.
Specimens archived in wet collections represent valuable material for scientific research. Here, we show that bat fly (Diptera, Nycteribiidae) samples contain DNA of Pseudogymnoascus destructans, a fungus pathogenic to bats. Using dual-probe quantitative PCR, we detected P. destructans DNA on bat flies collected in the Samara, Sverdlovsk and Irkutsk regions of Russia between 2005 and 2017. Fungal load was significantly lower on bat flies from wet collections than on freshly collected mites in the Czech Republic. The bat pathogen was present in the Samara region (European part of Russia) in 2005, that is, a year before recognition of white-nose syndrome in North America. As Samara and Irkutsk regions were identified as new positive locations of P. destructans, our data expand the known geographic distribution of P. destructans. We conclude that ethanol-stored ectoparasites can be used to identify the presence of pathogens in historic bat populations and understudied geographical regions.
湿保存标本是科学研究的宝贵材料。本研究显示，蝙蝠蝇（双翅目，蝠蝇科）样本中含有假球腔菌（Pseudogymnoascus destructans）的 DNA，该真菌对蝙蝠具有致病性。采用双探针定量 PCR 方法，我们检测到了 2005 年至 2017 年间在俄罗斯萨马拉、斯维尔德洛夫斯克和伊尔库茨克地区采集的蝙蝠蝇中存在假球腔菌 DNA。湿保存标本中的真菌载量明显低于捷克共和国新鲜采集的螨虫。2005 年，在俄罗斯欧洲部分的萨马拉地区（Samara region）就已发现了这种蝙蝠病原体，比北美白鼻综合征（white-nose syndrome）的确认时间早一年。由于萨马拉和伊尔库茨克地区被确定为假球腔菌的新阳性地区，我们的数据扩大了假球腔菌的已知地理分布范围。我们得出结论，乙醇保存的外寄生虫可用于鉴定历史蝙蝠种群和研究较少的地理区域中病原体的存在。
