Molecular detection of Megatrypanum trypanosomes in tabanid flies

Abstract

Trypanosomes of the subgenus Megatrypanum have been isolated from many mammalian hosts around the world. They are usually non‐pathogenic, although they may confuse the parasitological diagnosis of trypanosomosis. Additionally, Trypanosoma theileri has been associated with disease in cattle. Megatrypanum trypanosomes are considered to be transmitted by different arthropods, including tabanids. However, little is known about the potential vectors of Megatrypanum trypanosomes in different parts of the world. The present study reports on the detection of Megatrypanum trypanosomes in Heamatopota pluvialis, Tabanus bromius, Tabanus maculicornis and Tabanus distinguendus in Poland. It also discusses the possible role of these tabanids in the transmission of Megatrypanum trypanosomes.

Pan-American Trypanosoma (Megatrypanum) trinaperronei n. sp. in the white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus Zimmermann and its deer ked Lipoptena mazamae Rondani, 1878: morphological, developmental and phylogeographical characterisation

“…Currently, there are three named species of Megatrypanum trypanosomes parasitizing deer, all based just on morphology and host species of origin: Trypanosoma (M.) mazamarum Mazza, Romana & Fiora, 1932 in brocket deer from Argentina [19]; Trypanosoma (M.) cervi Kingston & Morton, 1975 in elk from the USA [28]; and Trypanosoma (M.) stefanskii Kingston, Bobek, Perzanowski, Wita & Maki, 1992 in roe deer from Poland [14]. Molecular studies have uncovered different species/genotypes of Megatrypanum trypanosomes in WTD and elk in the USA [12], red deer in Croatia [15], sika deer in Japan [16], and the invader sika deer plus wisent (European bison), red deer and fallow deer in Poland [29].…”

Pan-American Trypanosoma (Megatrypanum) perronei sp. n. in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and its deer ked Lipoptena mazamae: morphological, developmental and phylogeographical characterisation

“…Interestingly, T. perronei sp. n. is more related to deer trypanosomes from Germany, Croatia, Poland and Russia, all nested into TthII lineage [15,29,31,54], than to trypanosomes found in sympatric WTD and elk (USA) nested into TthI, a lineage also harbouring a trypanosome of Japanese sika deer [12,16]. American WTD, and these two species are estimated to have diverged just by 0.3-0.9 mya [62].…”

“…4). In addition, this lineage also comprises T. theileri of cattle from South America, Japan and the USA, and T. theileri-like trypanosomes of South American water buffalo and Polish wisent [24,25,29].…”

“…L. mazamae occurs from south-eastern USA to South America [39,55] and is tightly linked to WTD, although this ked can eventually jump to phylogenetically close deer species [39]. To date, deer flies, which have been experimentally proven to transmit deer trypanosomes, and deer keds have been implicated as vectors of cervid trypanosomes [21,29,31,36,38,56,57]. Recent studies report on DNA from deer trypanosomes in guts of sand flies and culicids [54,58], but their roles as vectors remains to be investigated.…”

“…For comparison, TCC2268 diverged by just 0.6% from the reference T. theileri TREU124 of cattle, thus reinforcing that these sequences are too conserved to clearly resolve the relationships of the recently diversified Megatrypanum trypanosomes. Regarding possible vectors, trypanosome sequences obtained from the guts of Brazilian, Poland and Russian tabanids, and Central AfricanRepublic tsetse flies were all assigned to both TthI and TthII lineages[24,29,36].…”