Metabolites From Trypanosome-Infected Cattle as Sensitive Biomarkers for Animal Trypanosomosis

Abstract

Trypanosomes are important global livestock and human pathogens of public health importance. Elucidating the chemical mechanisms of trypanosome-relevant host interactions can enhance the design and development of a novel, next-generation trypanosomosis diagnostics. However, it is unknown how trypanosome infection affects livestock volatile odors. Here, we show that Trypanosoma congolense and Trypanosoma vivax infections induced dihydro-β- ionone and junenol, while abundance of dihydro-α-ionone, phenolics, p-cresol, and 3-propylphenol significantly elevated in cow urine. These biomarkers of trypanosome infection are conserved in cow breath and the urine metabolites of naturally infected cows, regardless of population, diet, or environment differences. Furthermore, treating trypanosome-infected cows reduced the levels of these indicators back to the pre-infection levels. Finally, we demonstrated that the potential of some specific biomarkers of phenolic origin may be used to detect active trypanosome infections, including low-level infections that are not detectable by microscopy. The sensitivity and specificity of biomarkers detection are suited for rapid, robust, and non-invasive trypanosomosis diagnosis under field conditions.

Molecular characterization of pathogenic African trypanosomes in biting flies and camels in surra-endemic areas outside the tsetse fly belt in Kenya

“…The low percentage of the camels identified with active infection might be due to the low sensitivity of the microscopic technique (Mossaad et al 2017;Njiru et al 2005, Getahun et al 2022. However, the molecular data showed that a significant number of camels were infected by trypanosomes, indicating that they might have subclinical infections.…”

“…Trypanozoon infection affected the PCV values significantly; camels that had active Trypanozoon infection were anaemic with the mean PCV value of 24.64 ± 6; however, microscopically negative camels had a higher PCV value of 30.14 ± 6, independent t-test, t = 3.303, P = 0.002, n = 222). Surra-infected camels were considerably anemic, an indication of trypanosomosis severity (Getahun et al 2022). Camels that were haemorrhagic, one infected with T. vivax (PCV 9%) and another with T. evansi type A (PCV 11%), were both severely anemic.…”

Multimodal interactions in Stomoxys navigation reveals synergy between olfaction and vision

“…Livestock-Stomoxys interaction experiment demonstrated that livestock colors are not essential for the assessment of host but can be attracted to combinations of cues obtained from host such as visual and semio-chemicals. From our previous study we did not find semio-chemical differences between cattle of various colors, such as in their urine, dung, and breath odor profile [21] [43].…”

Evaluation of biochemical indices in indigenous cattle breeds and crossbred genotypes under natural trypanosome challenge

“…Trypanosomiasis is a vector-borne haemoparasitic disease of vertebrate animals caused by blood parasites belonging to the genus Trypanosoma (Mishra et al, 2017;Igbokwe, 2018). Trypanosomes are transmitted biologically by tsetse ies of the genus Glosina and mechanically by biting ies of the genus Tabanus and Stomoxys (Khan et al, 2018;Getahun et al, 2022). All species of vertebrates (domestic animals, wildlife, and humans) are susceptible to at least one species of trypanosomes (Oie 2021;Aliyu et al, 2022).…”

“…The major pathogenic species in domestic livestock are Trypanosoma congolense, T. vivax, T. brucei, and T. evansi for ruminants, T. simiae for pigs, T. evansi and T. equipadium for horses and donkeys (Khan et al, 2018;Oie 2021). In susceptible hosts, economic losses involve high morbidity and mortality, infertility and abortion (Getahun et al, 2022) and clinical signs include anorexia, anaemia, emaciation, profuse salivation, organ in ammation and damage, tissue degeneration, and necrosis (Igbokwe, 2018).…”