Dataset Information

High local diversity of Trypanosoma in a common bat species, and implications for the biogeography and taxonomy of the T. cruzi clade.

ABSTRACT: The Trypanosoma cruzi clade is a group of parasites that comprises T. cruzi sensu lato and its closest relatives. Although several species have been confirmed phylogenetically to belong to this clade, it is uncertain how many more species can be expected to belong into this group. Here, we present the results of a survey of trypanosome parasites of the bat Artibeus jamaicensis from the Panamá Canal Zone, an important seed disperser. Using a genealogical species delimitation approach, the Poisson tree processes (PTP), we tentatively identified five species of trypanosomes - all belonging to the T. cruzi clade. A small monophyletic group of three putative Trypanosoma species places at the base of the clade phylogeny, providing evidence for at least five independent colonization events of these parasites into the New World. Artibeus jamaicensis presents a high diversity of these blood parasites and is the vertebrate with the highest number of putative trypanosome species reported from a single locality. Our results emphasize the need for continued efforts to survey mammalian trypanosomes.

SUBMITTER: Cottontail VM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4182490 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

High local diversity of Trypanosoma in a common bat species, and implications for the biogeography and taxonomy of the T. cruzi clade.

Cottontail Veronika M VM Kalko Elisabeth K V EK Cottontail Iain I Wellinghausen Nele N Tschapka Marco M Perkins Susan L SL Pinto C Miguel CM

PloS one 20140930 9

The Trypanosoma cruzi clade is a group of parasites that comprises T. cruzi sensu lato and its closest relatives. Although several species have been confirmed phylogenetically to belong to this clade, it is uncertain how many more species can be expected to belong into this group. Here, we present the results of a survey of trypanosome parasites of the bat Artibeus jamaicensis from the Panamá Canal Zone, an important seed disperser. Using a genealogical species delimitation approach, the Poisson ...[more]

PMID: 25268381

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundBat trypanosomes have been implicated in the evolutionary history of the T. cruzi clade, which comprises species from a wide geographic and host range in South America, Africa and Europe, including bat-restricted species and the generalist agents of human American trypanosomosis T. cruzi and T. rangeli.MethodsTrypanosomes from bats (Rhinolophus landeri and Hipposideros caffer) captured in Mozambique, southeast Africa, were isolated by hemoculture. Barcoding was carried out through the V7V8 region of Small Subunit (SSU) rRNA and Fluorescent Fragment Length barcoding (FFLB). Phylogenetic inferences were based on SSU rRNA, glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase (gGAPDH) and Spliced Leader (SL) genes. Morphological characterization included light, scanning and transmission electron microscopy.ResultsNew trypanosomes from bats clustered together forming a clade basal to a larger assemblage called the T. cruzi clade. Barcoding, phylogenetic analyses and genetic distances based on SSU rRNA and gGAPDH supported these trypanosomes as a new species, which we named Trypanosoma livingstonei n. sp. The large and highly polymorphic SL gene repeats of this species showed a copy of the 5S ribosomal RNA into the intergenic region. Unique morphological (large and broad blood trypomastigotes compatible to species of the subgenus Megatrypanum and cultures showing highly pleomorphic epimastigotes and long and slender trypomastigotes) and ultrastructural (cytostome and reservosomes) features and growth behaviour (when co-cultivated with HeLa cells at 37°C differentiated into trypomastigotes resembling the blood forms and do not invaded the cells) complemented the description of this species.ConclusionPhylogenetic inferences supported the hypothesis that Trypanosoma livingstonei n. sp. diverged from a common ancestral bat trypanosome that evolved exclusively in Chiroptera or switched at independent opportunities to mammals of several orders forming the clade T. cruzi, hence, providing further support for the bat seeding hypothesis to explain the origin of T. cruzi and T. rangeli.

Project description:As a central component of innate immunity, complement activation is a critical mechanism of containment and clearance of microbial pathogens in advance of the development of acquired immunity. Several pathogens restrict complement activation through the acquisition of host proteins that regulate complement activation or through the production of their own complement regulatory molecules (M. K. Liszewski, M. K. Leung, R. Hauhart, R. M. Buller, P. Bertram, X. Wang, A. M. Rosengard, G. J. Kotwal, and J. P. Atkinson, J. Immunol. 176:3725-3734, 2006; J. Lubinski, L. Wang, D. Mastellos, A. Sahu, J. D. Lambris, and H. M. Friedman, J. Exp. Med. 190:1637-1646, 1999). The infectious stage of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi produces a surface-anchored complement regulatory protein (CRP) that functions to inhibit alternative and classical pathway complement activation (K. A. Norris, B. Bradt, N. R. Cooper, and M. So, J. Immunol. 147:2240-2247, 1991). This study addresses the genomic complexity of the T. cruzi CRP and its relationship to the T. cruzi supergene family comprising active trans-sialidase (TS) and TS-like proteins. The TS superfamily consists of several functionally distinct subfamilies that share a characteristic sialidase domain at their amino termini. These TS families include active TS, adhesions, CRPs, and proteins of unknown functions (G. A. Cross and G. B. Takle, Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 47:385-411, 1993). A sequence comparison search of GenBank using BLASTP revealed several full-length paralogs of CRP. These proteins share significant homology at their amino termini and a strong spatial conservation of cysteine residues. Alternative pathway complement regulation was confirmed for CRP paralogs with 58% (low) and 83% (high) identity to AAB49414. CRPs are functionally similar to the microbial and mammalian proteins that regulate complement activation. Sequence alignment of mammalian complement control proteins to CRP showed that these sequences are distinct, supporting a convergent evolutionary pathway. Finally, we show that a clonal line of T. cruzi expresses multiple unique copies of CRP that are differentially recognized by patient sera.

Project description:BackgroundTrypanosoma cruzi, the causal agent of Chagas Disease, affects more than 16 million people in Latin America. The clinical outcome of the disease results from a complex interplay between environmental factors and the genetic background of both the human host and the parasite. However, knowledge of the genetic diversity of the parasite, is currently limited to a number of highly studied loci. The availability of a number of genomes from different evolutionary lineages of T. cruzi provides an unprecedented opportunity to look at the genetic diversity of the parasite at a genomic scale.ResultsUsing a bioinformatic strategy, we have clustered T. cruzi sequence data available in the public domain and obtained multiple sequence alignments in which one or two alleles from the reference CL-Brener were included. These data covers 4 major evolutionary lineages (DTUs): TcI, TcII, TcIII, and the hybrid TcVI. Using these set of alignments we have identified 288,957 high quality single nucleotide polymorphisms and 1,480 indels. In a reduced re-sequencing study we were able to validate ~ 97% of high-quality SNPs identified in 47 loci. Analysis of how these changes affect encoded protein products showed a 0.77 ratio of synonymous to non-synonymous changes in the T. cruzi genome. We observed 113 changes that introduce or remove a stop codon, some causing significant functional changes, and a number of tri-allelic and tetra-allelic SNPs that could be exploited in strain typing assays. Based on an analysis of the observed nucleotide diversity we show that the T. cruzi genome contains a core set of genes that are under apparent purifying selection. Interestingly, orthologs of known druggable targets show statistically significant lower nucleotide diversity values.ConclusionsThis study provides the first look at the genetic diversity of T. cruzi at a genomic scale. The analysis covers an estimated ~ 60% of the genetic diversity present in the population, providing an essential resource for future studies on the development of new drugs and diagnostics, for Chagas Disease. These data is available through the TcSNP database (http://snps.tcruzi.org).

Dataset Information

High local diversity of Trypanosoma in a common bat species, and implications for the biogeography and taxonomy of the T. cruzi clade.

Publications

High local diversity of Trypanosoma in a common bat species, and implications for the biogeography and taxonomy of the T. cruzi clade.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets