Centro de Investigaciones en Microbiología y Biotecnología-UR (CIMBIUR), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia.
Grupo de Parasitología, Instituto Nacional de Saludgrid.419226.a, Bogotá, Colombia.
Microbiol Spectr. 2021 Oct 31;9(2):e0065221. doi: 10.1128/Spectrum.00652-21. Epub 2021 Oct 13.
Trypanosomatid infections are an important public health threat affecting many low-income countries across the tropics, particularly in the Americas. Trypanosomatids can infect many vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant species and play an important role as human pathogens. Among these clinically relevant pathogens are species from the genera and . Mixed trypanosomatid infections remain a largely unexplored phenomenon. Herein, we describe the application of an amplicon-based next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay to detect and identify trypanosomatid species in mammalian reservoirs, human patients, and sand fly vectors throughout regions of endemicity. Sixty-five samples from different departments of Colombia, including two samples from Venezuela, were analyzed: 49 samples from cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) patients, 8 from sand flies, 2 from domestic reservoirs (Canis familiaris), and 6 from wild reservoirs (Phyllostomus hastatus). DNA from each sample served to identify the presence of trypanosomatids through conventional PCR using heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) gene as the target. PCR products underwent sequencing by Sanger sequencing and NGS, and trypanosomatid species were identified by using BLASTn against a reference database built from trypanosomatid-derived HSP70 sequences. The alpha and beta diversity indexes of amplicon sequence variants were calculated for each group. The results revealed the presence of mixed infections with more than two species in 34% of CL samples analyzed. Trypanosoma cruzi was identified in samples from wild reservoirs, as well as in sand fly vectors. Coinfection events with three different species were identified in domestic reservoirs. These findings depose the traditional paradigm of leishmaniasis as being a single-species-driven infection and redraw the choreography of host-pathogen interaction in the context of multiparasitism. Further research is needed to decipher how coinfections may influence disease progression. This knowledge is key to developing an integrated approach for diagnosis and treatment. Traditionally, there has been a frequent, yet incorrect assumption that phlebotomine vectors, animal reservoirs, and human hosts are susceptible to infection by a single parasite species. However, current evidence supports that these new vector-parasite-reservoir associations lend vectors and reservoirs greater permissiveness to certain species, thus promoting the appearance of coinfection events, particularly in disease-endemic regions. The present study describes the application of an amplicon-based next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay to detect and identify trypanosomatid species in mammalian reservoirs, human patients, and sand fly vectors from regions of endemicity for leishmaniasis. This changes our understanding of the clinical course of leishmaniasis in areas of endemicity.
锥体虫感染是热带地区许多低收入国家面临的一个重要公共卫生威胁,尤其在美洲地区更为严重。锥体虫可感染许多脊椎动物、无脊椎动物和植物物种,并且是人类病原体中的重要一员。在这些具有临床相关性的病原体中,包括 和 属的物种。混合锥体虫感染仍然是一个很大程度上尚未被探索的现象。在此,我们描述了一种基于扩增子的下一代测序(NGS)检测方法在锥体虫物种检测和鉴定中的应用,这些物种存在于哺乳动物储主、人类患者和流行地区的沙蝇媒介中。对来自哥伦比亚不同地区的 65 个样本进行了分析,包括来自委内瑞拉的两个样本:49 个来自皮肤利什曼病(CL)患者,8 个来自沙蝇,2 个来自家养储主(犬),6 个来自野生储主(棕蝠)。从每个样本中提取 DNA,通过热休克蛋白 70(HSP70)基因作为目标,使用常规 PCR 来确定锥体虫的存在。对 PCR 产物进行 Sanger 测序和 NGS 测序,通过与来自锥体虫 HSP70 序列的参考数据库进行 BLASTn 比对来鉴定锥体虫物种。为每个组计算了扩增子序列变异的 alpha 和 beta 多样性指数。结果显示,在分析的 34%的 CL 样本中存在两种以上 的混合感染。在野生储主以及沙蝇媒介中均鉴定出克氏锥虫。在家养储主中也鉴定出了三种不同 的感染事件。这些发现颠覆了利什曼病作为单一物种驱动感染的传统观点,重新描绘了多寄生虫感染背景下宿主-病原体相互作用的动态。需要进一步研究来阐明合并感染如何影响疾病进展。这一知识对于开发综合诊断和治疗方法至关重要。
传统上,人们经常错误地认为,白蛉媒介、动物储主和人类宿主易受单一寄生虫物种的感染。然而,现有证据表明,这些新的媒介-寄生虫-储主的关联使媒介和储主对某些 物种的易感性增加,从而促进了合并感染事件的出现,尤其是在疾病流行地区。本研究描述了一种基于扩增子的下一代测序(NGS)检测方法在锥体虫物种检测和鉴定中的应用,这些物种存在于利什曼病流行地区的哺乳动物储主、人类患者和沙蝇媒介中。这改变了我们对流行地区利什曼病临床病程的理解。
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