Coevolutionary analyses of the relationships between piroplasmids and their hard tick hosts

Gou, Huitian; Guan, Guiquan; Liu, Aihong; Ma, Miling; Chen, Ze; Liu, Zhijie; Ren, Qiaoyun; Li, Youquan; Yang, Jifei; Yin, Hong; Luo, Jianxun

doi:10.1002/ece3.685

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…), among other diseases. The Plasmodium and Babesia genera are relatively closely related among the apicomplexans (1) (last common ancestor, ϳ55 million years ago [2]) ( Fig. 1A) and share similar features in their biology, including mechanisms for host cell invasion and metabolism (3)(4)(5)(6).…”

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Extensive Shared Chemosensitivity between Malaria and Babesiosis Blood-Stage Parasites

Paul

Moreira

Elsworth

et al. 2016

Antimicrob Agents Chemother

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The apicomplexan parasites that cause malaria and babesiosis invade and proliferate within erythrocytes. To assess the potential for common antiparasitic treatments, we measured the sensitivities of multiple species of Plasmodium and Babesia parasites to the chemically diverse collection of antimalarial compounds in the Malaria Box library. We observed that these parasites share sensitivities to a large fraction of the same inhibitors and we identified compounds with strong babesiacidal activity.T he apicomplexan phylum of eukaryotic microbial parasites is important in human and veterinary medicine. Apicomplexans cause malaria (Plasmodium spp.), babesiosis (Babesia spp.), toxoplasmosis (Toxoplasma gondii), and cryptosporidiosis (Cryptosporidium spp.), among other diseases. The Plasmodium and Babesia genera are relatively closely related among the apicomplexans (1) (last common ancestor, ϳ55 million years ago [2]) ( Fig. 1A) and share similar features in their biology, including mechanisms for host cell invasion and metabolism (3-6). Both Plasmodium and Babesia spp. are pathogenic during the stage of infection when parasites colonize host erythrocytes. Historically, drug development has focused more strongly on inhibitors for Plasmodium sp. parasites (7). Researchers have found that some antimalarial drugs also reduce proliferation of Babesia sp. parasites in erythrocytes as well (8, 9). The antimalarial atovaquone, a ubiquinone analog, is the preferred clinical treatment for human babesiosis in combination with azithromycin (10) and is used also in veterinary practice for babesiosis in dogs (11).A renewed focus on malaria eradication has led to the identification of an unprecedented number of bioactive compounds that block proliferation of Plasmodium falciparum in erythrocytes (12). In 2011, the nonprofit group Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) made available to the research community the Malaria Box, a collection of 400 chemically diverse, previously uncharacterized blood-stage antimalarials (13). Researchers have screened the antiparasitic activities of the Malaria Box compounds in nonerythrocytic host cells for the apicomplexans T. gondii, Cryptosporidium parvum, and Theileria annulata and identified a limited number of inhibitors (Ͻ3% of the library) active against each of these species (14-16). Here, we measured the susceptibilities of multiple blood-stage Plasmodium and Babesia parasite species to the Malaria Box compounds and found that erythrocyte-specific apicomplexans share considerable chemical sensitivities during the clinically relevant stages of parasitic infection.To determine the species-specific action of the Malaria Box compounds, we measured the chemical susceptibility of Plasmodium knowlesi in parallel with the reference species P. falciparum (13) (see Dataset S1 in the supplemental material). Endemic to macaque monkeys in southeast Asia and an emerging zoonosis in humans, P. knowlesi is distinguished from P. falciparum by its shorter blood-stage cell cycle and reduced rate of parasite mult...

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confidence: 99%

Extensive Shared Chemosensitivity between Malaria and Babesiosis Blood-Stage Parasites

Paul

Moreira

Elsworth

et al. 2016

Antimicrob Agents Chemother

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“…40 million years ago [23]. Relative to this event, as inferred from the branch lengths in the 16S rRNA gene phylogenetic tree (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenetic analysis of Haemaphysalis erinacei Pavesi, 1884 (Acari: Ixodidae) from China, Turkey, Italy and Romania

et al. 2016

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Background Haemaphysalis erinacei is one of the few ixodid tick species for which valid names of subspecies exist. Despite their disputed taxonomic status in the literature, these subspecies have not yet been compared with molecular methods. The aim of the present study was to investigate the phylogenetic relationships of H. erinacei subspecies, in the context of the first finding of this tick species in Romania.ResultsAfter morphological identification, DNA was extracted from five adults of H. e. taurica (from Romania and Turkey), four adults of H. e. erinacei (from Italy) and 17 adults of H. e. turanica (from China). From these samples fragments of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and 16S rRNA genes were amplified via PCR and sequenced. Results showed that cox1 and 16S rRNA gene sequence divergences between H. e. taurica from Romania and H. e. erinacei from Italy were below 2%. However, the sequence divergences between H. e. taurica from Romania and H. e. turanica from China were high (up to 7.3% difference for the 16S rRNA gene), exceeding the reported level of sequence divergence between closely related tick species. At the same time, two adults of H. e. taurica from Turkey had higher 16S rRNA gene similarity to H. e. turanica from China (up to 97.5%) than to H. e. taurica from Romania (96.3%), but phylogenetically clustered more closely to H. e. taurica than to H. e. turanica.ConclusionsThis is the first finding of H. erinacei in Romania, and the first (although preliminary) phylogenetic comparison of H. erinacei subspecies. Phylogenetic analyses did not support that the three H. erinacei subspecies evaluated here are of equal taxonomic rank, because the genetic divergence between H. e. turanica from China and H. e. taurica from Romania exceeded the usual level of sequence divergence between closely related tick species, suggesting that they might represent different species. Therefore, the taxonomic status of the subspecies of H. erinacei needs to be revised based on a larger number of specimens collected throughout its geographical range.

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“…Thus there can be possible difficulties in the study of disease transmission and vector control as proper identification of the vector and understanding of the relationships between closely related species is a must for devising any effective control strategy [14][15][16]. The traditional morphology based identification is sometimes problematic due to variations caused by blood meal [17] and chances of geographical strains of tick species having different vectorial capacity [18][19][20], genetic introgression, fertile hybrids [21][22], and resistance to acaricides [23] are always there. During the past two decades several molecular markers have been used to resolve relationships and solve problems facing systematics of hard ticks in the family Ixodidae [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenetic analysis of some hard ticks from India using mitochondrial 16s rDNA

2016

J App Biol Biotech

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The present study was conducted to analyze inter-relationships between Indian hard tick using mitochondrial 16s rDNA. The sequence alignment consisted of 85 sequences, 32 sequences of 16s rDNA belonging to 7 species of two genera viz. Rhipicephalus and Hyalomma generated from PCR amplified products and 53 sequences of hard ticks from India available in genbank database. The NJ analyses conducted in MEGA6 revealed that Haemaphysalinae is basal to the clade of Rhipicephalinae + Hyalomminae in the metastriate lineage while Ixodinae was basal in Ixodidae. There were two large clades, one clade of Hyalomma anatolicum, Hy. excavatum, Hy. hussaini and Hy. brevipunctata and second clade of Rhipicephalus (Rhipicephalus) + Rhipicephalus (Boophilus). The results provide evidence for the contention of polyphyly of Rh. (Rh.) sanguineus and species complex status of Rh. (B.) microplus. A further molecular study from wider distributional area using more genetic markers is needed to confirm these observations.

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Coevolutionary analyses of the relationships between piroplasmids and their hard tick hosts

Cited by 17 publications

References 32 publications

Extensive Shared Chemosensitivity between Malaria and Babesiosis Blood-Stage Parasites

Extensive Shared Chemosensitivity between Malaria and Babesiosis Blood-Stage Parasites

Phylogenetic analysis of Haemaphysalis erinacei Pavesi, 1884 (Acari: Ixodidae) from China, Turkey, Italy and Romania

Phylogenetic analysis of some hard ticks from India using mitochondrial 16s rDNA

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