Out of Africa: The origins of the protozoan blood parasites of the Trypanosoma cruzi clade found in bats from Africa

Clément, Laura; Dietrich, Muriel; Markotter, Wanda; Fasel, Nicolas; Monadjem, Ara; López‐Baucells, Adrià; Scaravelli, Dino; Theou, Philippe; Pigeault, Romain; Rüedi, Manuel; Christe, Philippe

doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2019.106705

Cited by 25 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…1, found in European and African Miniopterus spp. [17], hence targeting haematophagous parasites can also reveal diversity and distribution of newly described and undescribed taxa. Furthermore, in some cases the administrative time (such as permit requests for blood sampling) and space for collection storage may also be significantly decreased.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Host conservation through their parasites: molecular surveillance of vector-borne microorganisms in bats using ectoparasitic bat flies

et al. 2020

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Most vertebrates host a wide variety of haematophagous parasites, which may play an important role in the transmission of vector-borne microorganisms to hosts. Surveillance is usually performed by collecting blood and/or tissue samples from vertebrate hosts. There are multiple methods to obtain samples, which can be stored for decades if properly kept. However, blood sampling is considered an invasive method and may possibly be harmful to the sampled individual. In this study, we investigated the use of ectoparasites as a tool to acquire molecular information about the presence and diversity of infectious microorganism in host populations. We tested the presence of three distinct vector-borne microorganisms in both bat blood and bat flies: Bartonella bacteria, malaria-like Polychromophilus sp. (Apicomplexa), and Trypanosoma sp. (Kinetoplastea). We detected the presence of these microorganisms both in bats and in their bat flies, with the exception of Trypanosoma sp. in South African bat flies. Additionally, we found Bartonella sp. in bat flies from one population in Spain, suggesting its presence in the host population even if not detected in bats. Bartonella and Polychromophilus infection showed the highest prevalence in both bat and bat fly populations. Single, co- and triple infections were also frequently present in both. We highlight the use of haematophagous ectoparasites to study the presence of infectious microorganism in host blood and its use as an alternative, less invasive sampling method.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Host conservation through their parasites: molecular surveillance of vector-borne microorganisms in bats using ectoparasitic bat flies

et al. 2020

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“…2), as has been previously demonstrated [17][18][19]21]. The T. cruzi clade can be subdivided into three subclades: Schyzotrypanum, T.wauwau (and other Neotropical bat trypanosomes, Trypanosomanoyesi Botero & Cooper, 2016, and Trypanosomalivingstonei Teixeira & Camargo, 2013) and T. rangeli/T.conorhini [21,35]. The speci c sequences of Trypanosoma minasense Chagas, 1908 and Trypanosoma leeuwenhoeki Shaw, 1969 grouped with T. rangeli in our tree were previously considered synonyms of this species by 18S rDNA sequence analysis, explaining their positioning [13,50].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 57%

“…1). This species is distributed worldwide, with its origin in Africa, and presents a high phyletic diversity [35]. However, its branching inside T. cruzi clade is strongly supported [13,[17][18][19]21].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

18S rDNA Sequence-Structure Phylogeny of The Trypanosomatida (Kinetoplastea, Euglenozoa) with Special Reference on Trypanosoma

Borges

Engstler

Wolf

2020

Preprint

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Background: Parasites of the order Trypanosomatida are known due to their medical relevance. Trypanosomes cause African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease in South America, and Leishmania Ross, 1903 species mutilate and kill hundreds of thousands of people each year. However, human pathogens are very few when compared to the great diversity of trypanosomatids. Despite the progresses made in the past decades on understanding the evolution of this group of organisms, there are still many open questions which require robust phylogenetic markers to increase the resolution of trees. Methods: Using two known 18S rDNA template structures (from Trypanosoma cruzi Chagas, 1909 and Trypanosoma brucei Plimmer & Bradford, 1899), individual 18S rDNA secondary structures were predicted by homology modeling. Sequences and their secondary structures, automatically encoded by a 12-letter alphabet (each nucleotide with its three structural states, paired left, paired right, unpaired), were simultaneously aligned. Sequence-structure trees were generated by neighbor joining and/or maximum likelihood.Results: With a few exceptions, all nodes within a sequence-structure maximum likelihood tree of 43 representative 18S rDNA sequence-structure pairs are robustly supported (bootstrap support >75). Even a quick and easy sequence-structure neighbor-joining analysis yields accurate results and enables reconstruction and discussion of the big picture for all 240 18S rDNA sequence-structure pairs of trypanosomatids that are currently available.Conclusions: We reconstructed the phylogeny of a comprehensive sampling of trypanosomes evaluated in the context of trypanosomatid diversity, demonstrating that the simultaneous use of 18S rDNA sequence and secondary structure data can reconstruct robust phylogenetic trees.

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“…One of these groups are the Trypanosoma associated clades in the growing diversity of trypanosomes, Hamilton and others hypothesized that bats may have been highly influential in the geographic spread of the T. cruzi clade and host-switching to other mammals (14). This 'bat-seeding' hypothesis has continued to gain support since it was proposed with the discovery of diverse lineages in the T. cruzi clade in bats globally (12,41). Similar patterns have been noted in malarial parasites (Haemosporida), wherein the transition from sauropsids into mammals likely occurred only once, with bats being a possible bridge to other mammals (13,65).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bats are key hosts in the radiation of mammal-associated Bartonella bacteria

McKee

Bai

Webb

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Bats are notorious reservoirs of several zoonotic diseases and may be uniquely tolerant of infection among mammals. Broad sampling has revealed the importance of bats in the diversification and spread of viruses and eukaryotes to other animal hosts. Vector-borne bacteria of the genus Bartonella are prevalent and diverse in mammals globally and recent surveys have revealed numerous Bartonella lineages in bats. We assembled a sequence database of Bartonella strains, consisting of nine genetic loci from 209 previously characterized lineages and 121 new cultured strains from bats, and used these data to perform the most comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of Bartonella to date. This analysis included estimation of divergence dates using a molecular clock and ancestral reconstruction of host associations and geography. We estimate that Bartonella began infecting mammals 62 million years ago near the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. Additionally, the radiation of particular Bartonella clades correlate strongly to the timing of diversification and biogeography of mammalian hosts. Bats were inferred to be the ancestral hosts of all mammal-associated Bartonella and appear to be responsible for the early geographic expansion of the genus. We conclude that bats have had a deep influence on the evolutionary radiation of Bartonella bacteria and their spread to other mammalian orders. These results support a 'bat seeding' hypothesis that could explain similar evolutionary patterns in other mammalian parasite taxa. Application of such phylogenetic tools as we have used to other taxa may reveal the general importance of bats in the ancient diversification of mammalian parasites.Discovering the evolutionary history of infectious agents in animals is important for understanding the process of host adaptation and the origins of human diseases. To clarify the evolution of the Bartonella genus, which contains important human pathogens, we performed phylogenetic analysis on a broad diversity of Bartonella strains, including novel strains from bats. Our results indicate that Bartonella clades diversified along with their mammal hosts over millions of years. Bats appear to be especially important in the early radiation and geographic dispersal of Bartonella lineages.These patterns are consistent with research indicating a chiropteran origin of important human viruses and eukaryotic parasites, suggesting that bats may play a unique role as historical sources of infections to other hosts.

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Out of Africa: The origins of the protozoan blood parasites of the Trypanosoma cruzi clade found in bats from Africa

Cited by 25 publications

References 53 publications

Host conservation through their parasites: molecular surveillance of vector-borne microorganisms in bats using ectoparasitic bat flies

Host conservation through their parasites: molecular surveillance of vector-borne microorganisms in bats using ectoparasitic bat flies

18S rDNA Sequence-Structure Phylogeny of The Trypanosomatida (Kinetoplastea, Euglenozoa) with Special Reference on Trypanosoma

Bats are key hosts in the radiation of mammal-associated Bartonella bacteria

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