CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Understanding the complex structure and spatiotemporal dynamics of sylvatic transmission cycles of Trypanosoma cruzi in heterogeneous environments is a big challenge. The transmission of T. cruzi occurs in a great variety of domestic and sylvatic habitats, including a wide diversity of mammal hosts and triatomines.The domestic cycle involves humans, domiciliated triatomines, and domestic dogs and cats, which are the major domestic reservoir hosts in the Americas. The sylvatic cycle includes triatomine bugs and up to 180 species of wild mammals, some of which can act as reservoir hosts in different ecological regions. Our research team has been studying the transmission of T. cruzi for 20 years in the Argentine Chaco. During 2002- 2004, in Santiago del Estero we studied the variations in the dynamics and the intensity of sylvatic transmission of T. cruzi and examined domestic dogs and cats serologically or by xenodiagnosis, in rural villages under surveillance between 1992 and 2002. Between 2008 and 2011, in Pampa del Indio, Chaco, a longitudinal study was conducted to investigate fluctuations in the occurrence of T. cruzi infections, the reservoir host competence and parasite discrete typing units (DTUs) in wild and domestic mammals of an endemic rural area. hrough kDNA-PCR and xenodiagnosis for parasite detection, our studies documents thatDasypus novemcinctus armadillos in Chaco, Conepatus chinga skunks in Santiago del Estero and Didelphis albiventris white-eared opossums in both areas, were the main sylvatic hosts of T. cruzi and had large reservoir competence. The species were infected by different DTUs. TcIII infections were found in skunks and armadillo species, while TcI were found in opossums, suggesting independent parasite transmission cycles. In Santiago del Estero and Chaco, domiciliated triatomines, dogs and cats from a given house compound shared the same DTUs in most cases, supporting the importance of dogs and cats as domestic reservoir hosts of T. cruzi.Supported by UBA, ANPCyT, CONICET.