Triatoma brasiliensis (Neiva, 1911): food sources and diversity of Trypanosoma cruzi in wild and artificial environments of the semiarid region of Ceará, Northeastern Brazil

BEZERRA CM; BARBOSA SE; SOUZA RCM, ; BAREZANI CP; GÜRTLER RE; NOVAES JR AR; DIOTAIUTI L

PARASITES AND VECTORS

BIOMED CENTRAL LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2018 vol. 11 p. 642 - 642

1756-3305

Background: Knowledge of triatomine food sources in different ecotopes enables the estimation of T. cruzitransmission risk in diverse environments, as well as its dynamics of dispersion and ecological niche. For Triatomabrasiliensis in the Caatinga, in the northeast of Brazil, seasonal differences influence feeding eclecticism and rates of T.cruzi infection. The objective of the present study was to monitor food sources and to characterize the populationsof T. cruzi associated with T. brasiliensis in wild and domestic environments in the Caatinga of northeast Brazil.Methods: A cross-sectional study based on a search for triatomines in wild and domestic environments, wasundertaken at five different time periods from 2009 to 2015. Insects from 2015 were used for identification of foodsources. Two universal primers, based on the conserved regions of the 12S rRNA locus, were used to amplify fragmentsof 215 bp. The content of the intestinal tract of triatomines was identified by a comparison between the sequencesobtained and those deposited in the GenBank database, using BLAST. In triatomines with parasitological diagnosis ofinfection by trypanosomatids, xenoculture was performed for the isolation and characterization of strains, using cox2,the amplification of the SL-IL mini-exon intergenic spacer and the polymorphism of the D7 divergent domain of thegene 24αrDNA-LSU.Results: Food sources were identified in 76.3% (213/279) T. brasiliensis specimens sampled in 2015. The most frequentsources in a total of 20 vertebrate species were: rodents (58%, 123/213), ruminants (30%, 64/213) and cats (6%, 12/213).A total of 49% (44/89) of the samples of T. cruzi isolated in the period from 2009 to 2015 were characterized: TcII (43%,19/44), TcI (41%, 18/44) and TcIII (16%, 7/44).Conclusions: The feeding eclecticism of T. brasiliensis shows its importance in maintaining the transmission dynamicsof T. cruzi, with evidence of intense circulation between anthropic and wild environments. Attention should be placedon the association among T. brasiliensis, rodents and ruminants, in addition to the presence of TcIII in the study region.