Abstract
Triatoma rubrofasciata (T. rubrofasciata), one kind of triatomine insects, is the vector of Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), which lead to American trypanosomiasis. Although the gut microbiome may play an essential role in the development and susceptibility of triatomine, there is limited research on the gut microbiota of T. rubrofasciata. To elucidate the effect of the vector’s developmental stages and environmental conditions on the gut microbiome, we employed 16S rRNA gene sequencing to profile the gut bacterial community diversity and composition of T. rubrofasciata. Significant shifts were observed in the overall gut microbe diversity and composition across the development of T. rubrofasciata and specific bacteria were detected in different stages. Serratia and Burkholderia-Caballeronia-Paraburkholderia were dominant in the 1st nymphal stage, while the abundance of Staphylococcus was low in the 1st nymphal stage. Oceanicaulis were undetectable in the adult stage and Odoribacter peaked in the 2nd nymphal stage. Moreover, Staphylococcus was correlated negatively with Serratia. Likewise, the total gut microbiota diversity and composition of T. rubrofasciata differentiated significantly by environmental conditions. The ingestion of a bloodmeal increased alpha diversity of gut bacterial communities, and Staphylococcus was more abundant in laboratory-reared bugs whereas Enterococcus enriched in wild-caught bugs. Furthermore, Pantoea was negatively correlated with Staphylococcus, and positively related to Bacillus only. The phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt) algorithm showed obvious metagenomic functional differences by environmental conditions, and Chagas disease relevant pathway was enriched in wild-caught T. rubrofasciata.
Highlights
American trypanosomiasis, named Chagas disease, is a vector-borne disease for which the causative agent is the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), which is mainly transmitted by triatomines
All four of the alpha diversity estimates increased in young nymphs (1st-3rd stages) but decreased obviously from 4th stage nymphs, reaching the lowest value in nymphs of the fifth instar; the value rebounded to the highest value in adults, especially in the female adults (Figure 1, KW test, p < 0.05 for all comparisons), which indicated that the gut bacteria of T. rubrofasciata were affected by aging, and the gut communities in adults were more rich and even than those at earlier stages
PCoA plots based on weighted UniFrac distances demonstrated that the composition of the bug gut flora was related to the development stage, with 65.12% and 18.07% variation explained by principal component (PC) 1 and PC 2, respectively; 1st stage nymphs were distant from the other nymphs and adults, and this result was mainly driven by the largest differences in the abundances of Staphylococcus and Serratia between 1st stage nymphs and the others (Figure 2A)
Summary
Named Chagas disease, is a vector-borne disease for which the causative agent is the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), which is mainly transmitted by triatomines. Chagas disease is one of the chronic, systemic and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs); with 8 million people infected worldwide, mostly in Latin America, at least 70 million people are at risk of contagion (Gourbière et al, 2012; Orantes et al, 2018; WHO, 2020). Chagas disease had been commonly recorded in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region in the past decades, it is being increasingly reported as an emerging infectious disease in North America, Europe and the Indo-Pacific region because of the frequent international migration of population and global invasion of the widespread kissing-bug (Hotez et al, 2012; Dujardin et al, 2015). Most triatomine species occur in the Americas, while six species belonging to the genus Linshcosteus are found in India; the species of the genus Triatoma are distributed in Africa, the Middle East, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific (Vieira et al, 2018)
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