Paleoparasitology of Chagas disease: a review

Abstract

One hundred years since the discovery of Chagas disease associated withAlthough Chagas disease transmission by Triatoma infestans has been eliminated from Brazil, the remaining chronic cases still pose a serious problem, especially in regions of the country where access to health care is more difficult. Chagas disease brings suffering and death for many people in Latin America, where many young adults still die early from cardiac lesions. Brazilian health authorities have been alert to the occurrence (mainly in the Amazon) of oral transmission through the ingestion of foods contaminated with vector-derived infective forms (metacyclic forms) (Dias & Coura 1997, Roque et al. 2008. These cases of oral transmission, occurring as outbreaks, are characterized by the appearance of acute and sometimes quite severe forms of the disease.Chagas disease must also have been a serious problem among prehistoric populations, especially if the possibility of sudden death in young adults and the consequences of the chronic phase, whether intestinal or cardiac is considered. Several paleoparasitological findings point to Chagas infection in various regions of the Americas, as well as cases of severe cardiac and megacolon lesions. This article discusses the evolutionary aspects of trypanosomatids and their transmission to humans in prehistoric times in the Americas. Trypanosomatids in mammalsTrypanosomatids are flagellate protozoa of the Kinetoplastida order, which includes both free-living organisms and parasites. The latter comprise monogenetic and digenetic organisms with extranuclear circular DNA peculiarly arranged as maxi and minicircles. Trypanosomatids of mammals provide an excellent example of how molecular paleoparasitology can shed light on epidemiological and biological questions. Trypanosomatids are very old eukaryotic organisms that probably diverged from the first eukaryotes soon after their association with the mitochondrion.Kinetoplastida are characterized by the presence of kDNA or kinetoplast DNA, an extranuclear DNA network formed by circular molecules, maxi and minicircles and that correspond to the parasite mitochondrial genome, localize near the flagellate's basal body.The Kinetoplastida include the Trypanosomatidae family, an exclusively parasitic taxon that infects a wide range of animals and plants, and the Bodonidae family, that includes parasitic and exclusively freeliving organisms.Trypanosoma cruzi is characterized by important heterogeneity and biological plasticity. These peculiarities were already observed in the pioneering studies by Carlos Chagas and Brumpt and represent an unresolved epidemiological conundrum to this day. The heterogeneity of T. cruzi that is expressed by various markers, as biological (differences in the infection pattern in mice and growth in axenic culture, differences in competence when colonizing culture cells and resistance to chemotherapeutic agents, among others), biochemical and molecular, result in the wide distribution in nature and in distinct epidemiological scenario...

Prehistoric earth oven facilities and the pathoecology of Chagas disease in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands

“…Until relatively recently, paleopathologists believed that Chagas disease became a major human problem after Andean animal domestication and the domiciliation of the Chagas disease cycle. Domiciliation involved association of guinea pigs, dogs, humans, and the insect vectors in canewalled human habitations (for review see Araújo et al, 2009;Darling and Donoghue, 2014;Ferreira et al, 2011;Guhl et al, 2014;Coimbra, 1988). It had long been believed that Chagas disease only spread across the rest of Latin America during historic times.…”

Archéologie d’un parasite du cheval

“…Depuis les premiers travaux de Mark Armand Rufer (Rufer, 1910) de nombreux échantillons archéologiques ont été étudiés, issus de diférentes régions du globe, qui ont permis de renseigner sur la biodiversité et la répartition des parasites à travers les âges. Au cours des deux dernières décennies, quelques synthèses des données ont pu être publiées (Gonçalves et al, 2003), parfois centrées sur certaines régions du globe Nezamabadi et al, 2011), parfois s'intéressant à des maladies tritement humaines (Araújo et Ferreira, 1995et 1997Araújo et al, 2009 ;et 2013. Toutefois, les données concernant les parasites d'animaux sont peu fréquentes et souvent diluées dans des monographies de sites archéologiques ou des rapports de fouilles.…”

Studies on protozoa in ancient remains - A Review

“…Additionally, members of the Medici family are known to have hunted in areas of Tuscany endemic for malaria (Fornaciari et al 2010a, b). Chagas disease is thought to have originated from a human intrusion into the T. cruzi syl- vatic cycle, gradually transitioning into a domestic cycle (Aufderheide et al 2004, Araújo et al 2009) and leishmaniasis would have increased in the New World due to travel to endemic zones or migration from such areas (Costa et al 2009). The probability of detecting parasites is sometimes enhanced by the methodology applied.…”