African nonhuman primates are infected with the yaws bacteriumTreponema pallidumsubsp.pertenue

Abstract

Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue (TPE) is the causative agent of yaws. The disease was subject to global eradication efforts in the mid 20th century but reemerged in West Africa, Southern Asia, and the Pacific region. Despite its importance for eradication, detailed data on possible nonhuman disease reservoirs are missing. A number of African nonhuman primates (NHPs) have been reported to show skin ulcerations suggestive of treponemal infection in humans. Furthermore antibodies against Treponema pallidum (TP) have been repeatedly detected in wild NHP populations. While genetic studies confirmed that NHPs are infected with TP strains, subspecies identification was only possible once for a strain isolated in 1966, pinpointing the involvement of TPE. We therefore collected a number of recently isolated simian TP strains and determined eight whole genome sequences using hybridization capture or long-range PCR combined with next-generation sequencing. These new genomes were compared with those of known human TP isolates. Our results show that naturally occurring simian TP strains circulating in three African NHP species all cluster with human TPE strains and show the same genomic structure as human TPE strains. These data indicate that humans are not the exclusive host for the yaws bacterium and that a One Health approach is required to achieve sustainable eradication of human yaws.

Gene target selection for loop-mediated isothermal amplification for rapid discrimination of Treponema pallidum subspecies

“…The TPE / TEN LAMP performance of the NHP samples (strain Fribourg-Blanc and DNA extracted from a clinical sample of a baboon at Ruaha National Park in Tanzania (RNP)) that were included into this study were similar to the results obtained for the human yaws-causing strains ( Fig 1C ). This is not surprising, given the fact that NHP TPE strains are genetically and functionally highly similar to human yaws causing strains [ 14 , 15 ]. However, the full diversity of NHP infecting TP is unknown and it is possible that monkeys from Sahelian Africa and Saudia Arabia may carry TEN strains.…”

“…Eradication of yaws is further challenged by the finding that nonhuman primates (NHPs) are infected with TP [ 12 , 13 ]. Notably, all whole genome sequenced simian strains must be considered TPE strains [ 14 , 15 ]. NHPs therefore must be considered as a possible natural reservoir for human infection [ 13 ].…”

Cell-free DNA Reveals Potential Zoonotic Reservoirs in Non-Human Primates

“…The high-throughput hypothesis-free sequencing approach also allows for monitoring of certain diseases known to have reservoirs in NHPs. Treponema pallidum (30,31) , is one such species that includes subspecies that cause the human diseases: syphilis (ssp pallidum), bejel (ssp endomicum), pinta (ssp carateum) and yaws (ssp pertenue). By creating a database of known strains and aligning the reads to these, 98 of the non-human primates were found to have reads aligning to this bacteria, although coverage was too low to disambiguate effectively between the different strains ( Fig.…”