Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Glasgow, UK.
Zoonoses Public Health. 2021 May;68(3):271-276. doi: 10.1111/zph.12808. Epub 2021 Jan 23.
Trypanosoma cruzi is widely reported in bats, yet transmission routes remain unclear. We present evidence from metagenomic sequence data that T. cruzi occurs in the saliva of diverse Neotropical bats. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that the bat-associated T. cruzi sequences described here formed part of a bat-specific clade, suggesting an independent transmission cycle. Our results highlight the value in repurposing metagenomic data generated for viral discovery to reveal insights into the biology of other parasites. Evaluating whether the presence of T. cruzi in the saliva of two hematophagous bat species represents an ecological route for zoonotic transmission of Chagas disease is an interesting avenue for future research.
克氏锥虫广泛存在于蝙蝠中，但传播途径仍不清楚。我们从宏基因组序列数据中提供证据表明，克氏锥虫存在于各种新热带蝙蝠的唾液中。系统发育分析表明，本文描述的与蝙蝠相关的克氏锥虫序列构成了蝙蝠特有的一个分支，表明存在独立的传播循环。我们的研究结果强调了重新利用为病毒发现而生成的宏基因组数据来揭示其他寄生虫生物学见解的价值。评估两种吸血蝙蝠物种唾液中是否存在克氏锥虫是否代表了查加斯病的人畜共患传播的生态途径，这是未来研究的一个有趣方向。
