An unexpected diversity of trypanosomatids in fecal samples of great apes.

Jan Votýpka,Nikki Tagg,Donald Mbohli,Klára J Petrželková,David Modrý,Barbora Pafčo

doi:10.1016/j.ijppaw.2018.09.003

Abstract

Charismatic great apes have been used widely and effectively as flagship species in conservation campaigns for decades. These iconic representatives of their ecosystems could also play a role as reservoirs of several zoonotic diseases. Recently it was demonstrated that African great apes can host Leishmania parasites (Kinetoplastea: Trypanosomatidae). Given that this finding raised a strong negative reaction from leishmania experts and the subsequent discussion did not lead to a clear resolution, we decided to analyze wild gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) fecal samples collected from the same area in Cameroon as in the original study. Fecal samples, used to circumvent the difficulties and ethics involved in obtaining blood samples from endangered wild apes, were screened by three different PCR assays for detection of Leishmania DNA. We did not detect any leishmania parasites in analyzed feces; however, sequencing of SSU rRNA revealed an unexpected diversity of free-living bodonids (Kinetoplastea: Bodonidae) and parasitic trypanosomatids (Kinetoplastea: Trypanosomatidae) other than Leishmania. A single detected Phytomonas species, found in chimpanzee feces, most likely originated from animal plant food. On the other hand, the presence of four free-living bodonid species and four parasitic insect monoxenous trypanosomatid, including two possible new species of the genus Herpetomonas, could be explained as ex post contamination of feces either from the environment or from flies (Diptera: Brachycera).

Highlights

Great apes, by their very nature, are extremely vulnerable
Of four Herpetomonas-positive fecal samples, sufficiently long (∼2000 bp) SSU rRNA sequences were obtained from one gorilla sample (D41-627; GenBank accession number is MG845925) and one chimpanzee sample (D31-Cu20; MG845928) and the subsequent phylogenetic analysis revealed two possible new herpetomonad species designated as new typing units, TU299 and TU300
The primary motivation of our study was to verify the previous findings and confirm/refute the occurrence of Leishmania spp. in gorillas and chimpanzees by detecting of parasite DNA in great ape feces coming from the same area as in the original study (Hamad et al, 2015a)

Summary

Introduction

By their very nature, are extremely vulnerable Today, these highly intelligent, charismatic species are threatened by many factors, including destruction of their forest habitats, hunting for bushmeat and the illegal pet trade, and disease. Due to the relatively recent and surprising findings that gorillas could play a role in the transmission of human parasitic diseases, such as malaria (e.g., Prugnolle et al, 2011) and strongylid nematodes (Hasegawa et al, 2014), and because of the newly recorded observation of trypanosomes in wild chimpanzee feces (Jirků et al, 2015), it is important to explore the potential presence of protozoan parasites in great apes. The detection was based on PCR and fluorescence in situ hybridization This highly unexpected finding elicited a negative reaction by a group of experts with extensive experience of working in the field of leishmaniasis research (Bastien et al, 2015). The comments of Bastien et al (2015) were published together with a reply from the authors of the original contribution (Hamad et al, 2015b)

Methods

Results

Conclusion