Abstract
Chagas disease is a zoonosis caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi and transmitted by triatomine insects to several mammalian species acting as reservoir hosts. In the present study, we assess T. cruzi-prevalence and DTU composition of the endemic rodent Octodon degus from a hyper-endemic area of Chagas disease in Chile. Parasite detection is performed by PCR assays on blood samples of individuals captured in the austral summers of 2010–2013. The infection level in rodents differed in the summers of these four years between 18% and 70%. Overall, infected O. degus showed similar T. cruzi-DTU composition (TcI, TcII, TcV and TcVI lineages) among years, corresponding to single and mixed infection, but the relative importance of each DTU changed among years. In 2013, we detected that only three out of the four T. cruzi-DTU found in O. degus were present in the endemic triatomine Mepria spinolai. We suggest that O. degus, an abundant long-lived rodent, is an important native reservoir of T. cruzi in the wild transmission cycle of Chagas disease and it is able to maintain all the T. cruzi-DTUs described in semiarid Chile.
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