Microsporidia are ubiquitous parasites infecting all animal phyla and we present evidence that supports their zoonotic potential. Fecal samples taken from domestic (cats and dogs), farm (pigs, rabbits and ostriches) and wild animals (foxes) from different provinces of Spain were evaluated for microsporidia infection by light microscopy and PCR. After Microsporidia species identification, E. bieneusi genotypes were additionally studied by sequence analysis of the ITS region. Eighty-five samples out of 159 exhibited structures that were compatible with microsporidia spores by Webeŕs stain with 37 of them being confirmed by PCR. Microsporidia species identified included E. bieneusi, E. intestinalis and A. algerae. We report the first diagnosis of E. intestinalis and E. bieneusi in ostriches and A. algerae in pigs. We also provide new information on the molecular characterization of E. bieneusi isolates both in rabbits and ostriches. All of the E. bieneusi genotypes identified belonged to the zoonotic group of genotypes (Group I) including genotypes A (dogs), I (pigs), D (rabbits and foxes) and type IV (ostriches). Our results demonstrate that microsporidia are present in domestic, farm and wild animals in Spain, corroborating their potential role as a source of human infection and environmental contamination.

The study of the burden that parasites can exert upon the bacterial gut microbiota was restricted by the available technologies and their costs. Currently, next-generation sequencing coupled with traditional methodologies allows the study of eukaryotic parasites (protozoa and helminths) and its effects on the human bacterial gut microbiota diversity. This diversity can be altered by a variety of factors such as age, diet, genetics and parasitic infections among others. The disturbances of the gut microbiota have been associated with a variety of illnesses. Children population in developing countries, are especially susceptible to parasitic infections because of the lack of proper sanitation and undernutrition, allowing both, the thriving of intestinal parasites and profound alteration of the gut microbiota. In this work, we have sampled the stool of 23 children from four different children’s care-centers in Medellin, Colombia, and we have identified the eukaryotic parasites by traditional and molecular methodologies coupled with microbial profiling using 16S rDNA sequencing. This mixed methodology approach has allowed us to establish an interesting relationship between Giardia intestinalis and helminth infection, having both effects upon the bacterial gut microbiota enterotypes, causing a switch from a type I to a type II enterotype upon infection.

The free-living amoebae, Acanthamoeba, can act as opportunistic parasites on a wide range of vertebrates and are becoming a serious threat to human health due to the resistance of their cysts to harsh environmental conditions, disinfectants, some water treatment practices, and their ubiquitous distribution. Subgenus classification based on morphology is being replaced by a classification based on the sequences of the 18S rRNA gene with a total of 18 different genotypes (T1-T18). A new environmental strain of Acanthamoeba isolated from a waste water treatment plant is presented in this study as a candidate for the description of the novel genotype T19 after phylogenetic analysis.

Recent studies have shown how intestinal parasites can modulate gut microbiota. This observation is not surprising since the human intestinal lumen, like any other niche, is a battlefield of microbial competition, and Eukaryotes can affect bacterial populations. Intestinal pathogenic protist has been associated with reshaping the microbial community structure; however, the interactions between the colonic bacterial communities and parasites like Blastocystis spp., Entamoeba coli, and Endolimax nana have been poorly studied. In this work, we studied the distal intestinal bacterial microbiota of 49 children attending 7 public daycare centers in Medellin, Colombia, and compared the bacterial microbiota structure in the presence or absence of the protists Blastocystis spp., E. coli, and E. nana. Parasite colonization was associated with an increase in bacterial richness. Moreover, Blastocystis spp. presented a positive relationship with Prevotella, since this bacterium was selectively enriched in children carrying it. Remarkably, the E. coli colonized children showed a microbial profile that was closer to uninfected controls, although some bacterial taxa displayed to be enriched. This is the case for Akkermansia, which showed to be favored in E. coli colonized individuals, while notably reduced in the Blastocystis spp. parasitized group.

Objective: to determine the prevalence of intestinal parasitosis, anemia and malnutrition among children of a Nasa indigenous reservation from Caldono in the Colombian department of Cauca, and their distribution according to clinical, sociodemographic and healthcareinfrastructure variables. Methodology: a crosssectional study with a primary source of information. Sixtytwo children were evaluated for intestinal parasites via stool analysis. Similarly, anthropometric measurements were used to assess nutritional status and determine the prevalence of various types of malnutrition. Likewise, the presence of anemia was determined by measuring hemoglobin levels. The group was described using summary measures for age and frequency measures for the other variables. Prevalence was calculated for intestinal parasites, anemia and malnutrition, and its association with independent variables was explored using hypothesis testing. The program SPSS 22.0 was used in this study. Results:

Introduction: HIV infection is still a public health problem worldwide, and co-infections with other infectious agents, including intestinal parasites are of particular concern, mainly in developing countries, like Colombia. Objective: To conducte a cross-sectional research in patients attending an HIV care program in the province of Antioquia, given that intestinal prevalence studies on the HIV population are few in the country,. Material and methods: Stool samples from 192 patients were evaluated by direct wet mount and concentration; modified Ziehl Neelsen staining and agar plate culture. Univariate and correlation analyses were done to explore the association between socio-demographic, clinical characteristics and, parasitological data. Results: The overall prevalence of intestinal parasites in HIV positive subjects was 29.2% (56/192; 95%CI: 22.8% to 35.6%), being Entamoeba histolytica/dispar/ moshkosvkii 13.0% (25/192; 95%CI: 8.2% to 17.8%), and Blastocystis  12.0% (23/192; 95%CI: 7.4% to 16.6%) the most frequent. Opportunistic parasites like Cryptosporidium spp. and Cystoisospora belli were less prevalent, each one with 0.5% of positive samples (1/192; 95%CI: 0.1% to 1.5%). Commensal protozoa were also detected, with a prevalence of  18.8% (36/192; 95%CI: 13.3% to 24.3%). Most of the individuals in the study had a controlled viral load and an LTCD4 count greater than 200 cel/µL. A small percentage (9.3%) had diarrhea. Bivariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression showed that only age and having pets had a significant association with intestinal parasites in the studied cohort. Conclusions: Our results confirm that the population evaluated is at high risk of intestinal parasite infection, which highlights the need to include routine screening for gastrointestinal parasites to  provide prompt treatment and reduce possible complications.

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Cryptosporidium parasites are ubiquitous and can infect a broad range of vertebrates and are considered the most frequent protozoa associated with waterborne parasitic outbreaks. The intestine is the target of three of the species most frequently found in humans: C. hominis, C. parvum, and. C. meleagridis. Despite the recent advance in genome sequencing projects for this apicomplexan, a broad genomic comparison including the three species most prevalent in humans have not been published so far. In this work, we downloaded raw NGS data, assembled it under normalized conditions, and compared 23 publicly available genomes of C. hominis, C. parvum, and C. meleagridis. Although few genomes showed highly fragmented assemblies, most of them had less than 500 scaffolds and mean coverage that ranged between 35X and 511X. Synonymous single nucleotide variants were the most common in C. hominis and C. meleagridis, while in C. parvum, they accounted for around 50% of the SNV observed. Furthermore, deleterious nucleotide substitutions common to all three species were more common in genes associated with DNA repair, recombination, and chromosome-associated proteins. Indel events were observed in the 23 studied isolates that spanned up to 500 bases. The highest number of deletions was observed in C. meleagridis, followed by C. hominis, with more than 60 species-specific deletions found in some isolates of these two species. Although several genes with indel events have been partially annotated, most of them remain to encode uncharacterized proteins.