Phylogenetic analysis of microsatellite markers further supports the two hybridization events hypothesis as the origin of the Trypanosoma cruzi lineages

Abstract

To better understand the evolution of the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, we cloned and sequenced 25 alleles from five Tripanosoma cruzi microsatellite markers. The study of the sequences showed highly conserved alleles present in T. cruzi clones belonging to TCI, TCIIc, and TCIIe. This result was also confirmed by the phylogenetic analysis of MCLE01 allele sequences. The examination by capillary electrophoresis of six microsatellite markers from 19 T. cruzi clones showed a high proportion of the alleles found both in the TCI and TCII sublineages. The phylogenetic reconstruction of these 19 clones produced a tree with two major clusters with bootstrap support of 100% and 95%. The first cluster includes T. cruzi clones belonging to the TCI and TCIIa lineages. The second cluster is composed of TCI, TCIIc, TCIId, and TCIIe T. cruzi clones. The analysis of five microsatellite markers in the CLBrener genome showed that almost all the microsatellite markers are synteny; non-Esmeraldo and Esmeraldo haplotypes probably come from the TCIIc and TCIIb lineages. Taken together, our results are in agreement with the two hybridization events hypothesis as the origin of current T. cruzi lineages.

Microsatellite marker analysis shows differentiation among Trypanosoma cruzi populations of peripheral blood and dejections of Triatoma infestans fed on the same chronic chagasic patients

“…As reference populations of each known T. cruzi lineage, the genotypic data of SCLE10, SCLE11 and MCLE01 markers from several T. cruzi clones published in the literature was used (De Freitas et al 2006;Venegas et al 2009b). According to this criterion, 16.7%, 28.1%, 14.3% and 21.9% of samples from the N-B, C-B, N-X and C-X T. cruzi DNA groups, respectively, were not taken into account to assign the corresponding lineages (ESM Table S1).…”

“…This approach was applied with corresponding SCLE10, SCLE11 and MCLE01 locus in each T. cruzi sample (Electronic supplementary materials (ESM) Table S1). These criteria were used based on the height ratio and distances between the two alleles found in different T. cruzi heterozygous clones analysed previously by us (Venegas et al 2009b).…”

Microsatellite loci-based distribution of Trypanosoma cruzi genotypes from Chilean chronic Chagas disease patients and Triatoma infestans is concordant with a specific host-parasite association hypothesis

“…The lineage nomenclature corresponds to the recent agreement (Zingales et al 2009); they were assigned based on three simultaneous methods as described (Venegas et al 2011). The laboratory cultured T. cruzi population samples correspond to published data of De Freitas et al (2006) and Venegas et al (2009a) and are the following: TcI from Brazil Amazon (1-Br-A) and TcI from Bolivia, Colombia and French Guyana (1-X);.TcII Brazilian samples from Goias (2-Br-G), Minas Gerais (2-Br-M), and other regions (2-Br-X). A TcIII sample mainly from Minas Gerais (TcIII).…”

“…Information was used from the published data of De Freitas et al (2006), Venegas et al (2009a) and Venegas et al (2011). The several T. cruzi clones and strains were grouped based on their geographic origin, of which the majority corresponded to regions of Brazil: Amazon (AM) (4°30´ S, 64°41´W); Espiritu Santos (ES), Minas Gerais (19°42´S, 44°1´W), Para (PA); Rio de Janeiro (RJ); Sao Paulo (SP); Goias (GO) (14°53´S 49°34 W) and Piauí (PI).…”

ABCG-like transporter of Trypanosoma cruzi involved in benznidazole resistance: Gene polymorphisms disclose inter-strain intragenic recombination in hybrid isolates

“…Increasing evidence indicates that genetic exchange has occurred among T. cruzi parasites (Westenberger et al, 2005;Venegas et al, 2009;Tomazi et al, 2009;Ienne et al, 2010;Yeo et al, 2011) and that ''hybrid genes'' may be a product of intragenic recombination (Ferreira and Briones, 2012). Because the events of recombination, hybridization and horizontal gene transfer are not well described by dichotomous trees, we inferred a network genealogy using the same seventeen nucleotide sequences (Fig.…”