Abstract
Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis affects six to seven million people worldwide, mostly in Latin America. This disease is transmitted by hematophagous insects known as “kissing bugs” (Hemiptera, Triatominae), with Triatoma infestans and Rhodnius prolixus being the two most important vector species. Despite the fact that both species present the same diploid chromosome number (2n = 22), they have remarkable differences in their total DNA content, chromosome structure and genome organization. Variations in the DNA genome size are expected to be due to differences in the amount of repetitive DNA sequences. The T. infestans genome-wide analysis revealed the existence of 42 satellite DNA families. BLAST searches of these sequences against the R. prolixus genome assembly revealed that only four of these satellite DNA families are shared between both species, suggesting a great differentiation between the Triatoma and Rhodnius genomes. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) location of these repetitive DNAs in both species showed that they are dispersed on the euchromatic regions of all autosomes and the X chromosome. Regarding the Y chromosome, these common satellite DNAs are absent in T. infestans but they are present in the R. prolixus Y chromosome. These results support a different origin and/or evolution in the Y chromosome of both species.
Highlights
Chagas disease is an anthropozoonotic illness caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi
The Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analyses carried out here with other three new satellite DNA (satDNA) in T. infestans revealed that these satDNAs are located on euchromatic regions of the autosomes and the X chromosome
Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) search results showed that only four satDNA families of the 42 isolated in the T. infestans genome had some similarity with the R. prolixus assembled genome
Summary
Chagas disease is an anthropozoonotic illness caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. It affects six to seven million people worldwide, mostly in Latin America but it is increasingly being detected in USA, Canada, and many European countries [1,2,3]. In Latin America, this disease is transmitted by hemipteran insects of the subfamily Triatominae, known as “kissing bugs”. This group included 151 species, being Triatoma infestans and Rhodnius prolixus the two major vector species, both by their extensive geographic distribution and their high effectiveness in transmitting the parasite to human hosts [4]. In Colombia and Venezuela, R. prolixus is the primary vector, while in large regions of Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina T. infestans is responsible for more than 30% of new cases that occur by vector transmission throughout Latin America [7]. Within T. infestans, two main lineages, named Andean and non-Andean, are clearly differentiated by genetic [8,9] and phenetic characteristics [10,11], with dissimilar geographic distribution and epidemiological capacities [12]
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