Abstract
Chagas disease is a trypanosomiasis whose causative agent is the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted to humans by hematophagous insects known as triatomines and affects a large proportion of South America. The digestive tract of the insect vectors in which T. cruzi develops constitutes a dynamic environment that affects the development of the parasite. Thus, we set out to investigate the chemical composition of the triatomine intestinal tract through a metabolomics approach. We performed Direct Infusion Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry on fecal samples of three triatomine species (Rhodnius prolixus, Triatoma infestans, Panstrongylus megistus) fed with rabbit blood. We then identified groups of metabolites whose frequencies were either uniform in all species or enriched in each of them. By querying the Human Metabolome Database, we obtained putative identities of the metabolites of interest. We found that a core group of metabolites with uniform frequencies in all species represented approximately 80% of the molecules detected, whereas the other 20% varied among triatomine species. The uniform core was composed of metabolites of various categories, including fatty acids, steroids, glycerolipids, nucleotides, sugars, and others. Nevertheless, the metabolic fingerprint of triatomine feces differs depending on the species considered. The variable core was mainly composed of prenol lipids, amino acids, glycerolipids, steroids, phenols, fatty acids and derivatives, benzoic acid and derivatives, flavonoids, glycerophospholipids, benzopyrans, and quinolines. Triatomine feces constitute a rich and varied chemical medium whose constituents are likely to affect T. cruzi development and infectivity. The complexity of the fecal metabolome of triatomines suggests that it may affect triatomine vector competence for specific T. cruzi strains. Knowledge of the chemical environment of T. cruzi in its invertebrate host is likely to generate new ways to understand the factors influencing parasite proliferation as well as methods to control Chagas disease.
Highlights
The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas disease, an endemic infection in much of Latin America [1,2,3]
Both protocols are from CONCEA/MCT, which is associated with the American Association for Animal Science (AAAS), the Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations (FELASA), the International Council for Animal Science (ICLAS) and the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC)
We studied the fecal metabolome of three species of triatomines, the insect vectors of T. cruzi and, Chagas disease
Summary
The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas disease, an endemic infection in much of Latin America [1,2,3]. The newly infected host can serve as a reservoir for further parasite dissemination [3,4] During this transmission cycle, the transformations experienced by T. cruzi upon entering the insect vector involve several steps (reviewed in [9]). Studies of bacterial strains isolated from the triatomine gut revealed that strains of Serratia marcescens, the predominant bacterial species found in Rhodnius and Triatoma [12], are able to lyse epimastigote forms of T. cruzi [16] These observations show that a myriad of compounds found in the triatomine gut have a decisive influence in the infectious process and determine whether T. cruzi can successfully establish itself in the vector host, which will subsequently determine its capacity to spread through human populations. Understanding metabolic variations may allow the identification of factors regulating parasite growth and assist in the development of anti-parasitic drugs
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