A Phylogenetic Lineage of Closely Related Trypanosomes (Trypanosomatidae, Kinetoplastida) of Anurans and Sand Flies (Psychodidae, Diptera) Sharing the Same Ecotopes in Brazilian Amazonia¹

Abstract

Analysis of the phylogenetic relationships among trypanosomes from vertebrates and invertebrates disclosed a new lineage of trypanosomes circulating among anurans and sand flies that share the same ecotopes in Brazilian Amazonia. This assemblage of closely related trypanosomes was determined by comparing whole SSU rDNA sequences of anuran trypanosomes from the Brazilian biomes of Amazonia, the Pantanal, and the Atlantic Forest and from Europe, North America, and Africa, and from trypanosomes of sand flies from Amazonia. Phylogenetic trees based on maximum likelihood and parsimony corroborated the positioning of all new anuran trypanosomes in the aquatic clade but did not support the monophyly of anuran trypanosomes. However, all analyses always supported four major clades (An01-04) of anuran trypanosomes. Clade An04 is composed of trypanosomes from exotic anurans. Isolates in clades An01 and An02 were from Brazilian frogs and toads captured in the three biomes studied, Amazonia, the Pantanal and the Atlantic Forest. Clade An01 contains mostly isolates from Hylidae whereas clade An02 comprises mostly isolates from Bufonidae; and clade An03 contains trypanosomes from sand flies and anurans of Bufonidae, Leptodactylidae, and Leiuperidae exclusively from Amazonia. To our knowledge, this is the first study describing morphological and growth features, and molecular phylogenetic affiliation of trypanosomes from anurans and phlebotomines, incriminating these flies as invertebrate hosts and probably also as important vectors of Amazonian terrestrial anuran trypanosomes.

Development of a loop-mediated isothermal amplification method for rapid mass-screening of sand flies for Leishmania infection

“…DNA from Leishmania-related parasites capable of infecting sand flies, such as Endotrypanum (Kato et al, 2007) and anuran Trypanosoma species (Ferreira et al, 2008), and also DNA from the sand flies Phlebotomus papatasi and Lutzomyia ayacuchensis, were included to evaluate the present LAMP primer specificity.…”

Molecular detection of Trypanosoma sp. and Blastocrithidia sp. (Trypanosomatidae) in phlebotomine sand flies (Psychodidae) in the Federal District of Brazil

“…The first evidence of the transmission of snake trypanosomes by sand fl ies was described by Viola et al (13) , who identifi ed trypanosomes from Viannamyia tuberculata that had approximately 94% similarity to a trypanosome isolated from Crotalus durissus. Furthermore, some sand fl ies have been infected by Trypanosoma species acquired from amphibians (14) . However, the identifi cation of the trypanosomes in this study requires further confi rmation, because sequence analysis showed identity values <90%.…”

Spliced Leader (SL) RNA: análises de genes e regiões intergênicas com aportes na filogenia, taxonomia e genotipagem de <i>Trypanosoma</i> spp. de todas as classes de vertebrados.

“…De início, sanguessugas aquáticas eram os únicos vetores reconhecidos (Simpson et al, 2006). Posteriormente, infecções experimentais comprovaram a participação de outros vetores, como mosquitos, flebotomíneos e culicoides (Simpson et al, 2006;Hamilton et al, 2007;Ferreira et al, 2007Ferreira et al, , 2008. (Noyes et al, 1999;Stevens et al, 2001;Hamilton et al, 2004;Simpson et al, 2006;Fermino et al, 2015).…”

“…Sequências do gene ribossômico têm sido bastante utilizadas para inferir relações filogenéticas entre organismos da classe Kinetoplastida Simpson et al, 2006;Lukes et al, 2014;Cavalier-Smith, 2016), para estabelecer os principais grupos naturais dentro da família Trypanosomatidae Merzlyak et al, 2001;Cavazzana et al, 2010) e para a identificação de gêneros, espécies, linhagens e genótipos dentro do gênero Trypanosoma (Maia da Silva et al, 2004;Rodrigues et al, 2006;Hamilton et al, 2007;Ferreira et al, 2007Ferreira et al, , 2008Viola et al 2008;Lemos et al, 2015;Austen et al, 2016). …”