Comparative genomics of neuropeptides in vectors of Chagas disease

LUCILA TRAVERSO; IVANA SIERRA; STERKEL MARCOS; ONS SHEILA

Cafayate Argentina

Conferencia; International Neuropeptide Conference 2017; 2017

International Neuropeptide Society

Chagas´ disease is a neglected tropical disease which is moreprevalent in the Americas, but human migration has allowed itsspreading to other regions in the world. The causative agent is theprotozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, transmitted by triatomineinsects (Figure 1). Despite the actions performed to eliminate thevectors, the disease is still prevalent in the Gran Chaco ecoregion.One of the main causes of the failure in their elimination seems to betheir resistance to insecticides. As the involvement of neuropeptidesin the response to insecticides is a poorly explored research field todate, in this work the identification of neuropeptide precursors in T.infestans, T. dimidiata and T. pallidipennis transcriptomes ispresented, along with peptidomic analysis in T. infestans.Furthermore, we compare gene expression of neuropeptideprecursor genes in T. infestans populations, sensitive and resistant topyrethroid insecticides, and sensitive insects, treated or not withdeltamethrin.