A Trypanosoma species detected in Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus ticks from Argentina

MOREL, NICOLÁS; THOMPSON, CAROLINA S.; ROSSNER, MARÍA V.; MANGOLD, ATILIO J.; NAVA, SANTIAGO

Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases

Elsevier

Año: 2021 vol. 12

1877-959X

Specimens of a Trypanosoma sp. were found in a haemolymph sample of Rhipicephalus microplus from Argentina.Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was done targeting the SSU rRNA gene of Trypanosoma spp. and a fragment of2300 base pairs (bp) was amplified, subsequently a phylogenetic analysis was conducted, based on an alignmentof 905 bp, containing the sequence of the Argentina isolate and sequences of different Trypanosoma speciesretrieved from GenBank. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that this trypanosome is not related to Trypanosomatheileri as was previously thought, instead the strain of Trypanosoma detected in this study can be provisionallydetermined as belonging to the recently described organism Trypanosoma rhipicephalis. Furthermore, phylogeneticanalysis performed in this work revealed that T. rhipicephalis belongs to a novel clade of tick-related trypanosomes,most with limited genetic data, for which essential aspects of both the vertebrate and invertebratelife cycles are lacking. The lack of basic information restricts the inferences that can be done from the presentfinding and, in addition, points out a clear knowledge gap in the biology of this group of trypanosomes.