The diverse echinostomes from East Africa: With a focus on species that use Biomphalaria and Bulinus as intermediate hosts

Abstract

Highlights 17 different clades of echinostomes were found in East Africa. The majority (13/17) of clades use Biomphalaria or Bulinus as an intermediate host. For four clades partial life cycles (2/3) were determined.

Mini-FLOTAC as an alternative, non-invasive diagnostic tool for Schistosoma mansoni and other trematode infections in wildlife reservoirs

“…Similarly, the epidemiology, pathology, and molecular systematics of Plagiorchis sp., a previously undescribed West African lineage, has been documented [22]. To our knowledge, the reports of E. caproni and Anchitrema sp., described herein, are the first molecularly confirmed identifications for these trematodes in definitive hosts of sub-Saharan Africa (see [40–42] for data on gastropod intermediate hosts of E. caproni in the African continent). The life cycle of Anchitrema parasites is largely undetermined since, to date, they have only been recorded in the intestine of various definitive hosts in the tropics and subtropics [23, 43].…”

Antagonism between parasites within snail hosts impacts the transmission of human schistosomiasis

“…By observing natural takeover events ( Biomphalaria shedding one type of cercariae and then later shedding a different type of cercariae only) and through experimental infections, we discovered that at Asao Stream S. mansoni occupies an intermediate position in the hierarchy, and echinostomes and C. sukari were the more dominant species (Figure 2). In general, amphistomes of domestic ruminants like C. sukari were more commonly recovered from B. pfeifferi from stream sites whereas echinostomes, mostly transmitted by birds (Laidemitt et al, 2019), were more likely to be recovered from B. sudanica from the lakeshore.…”

“…This is of relevance for a species like S. mansoni occupying an intermediate hierarchical position in that it is not inevitably confronted in snails by predatory or inhibitory rediae of other species. Secondly, input of eggs from competitively dominant species like echinostomes often originates from birds (Laidemitt et al, 2019) and is likely dwarfed by the input of eggs from large definitive hosts like people, goats or cattle. This helps explain how the prevalence achieved by S. mansoni or by C. sukari is much higher than achieved by echinostomes despite the latter’s competitive dominance in snails.…”

“…Sequences were edited in Sequencher 5.0 and then were aligned by eye in Mega 7 (Kumar et al, 2016) against the diversity of sequences in GenBank for each gene. More details about these methods are described in Laidemitt et al (2017) and Laidemitt et al (2019). To determine species or genus to which our samples were most closely aligned, we ran pairwise comparisons in Mega 7.…”

Evaluation of the Molluscicidal, Artemicidal and Cytotoxic Activities of the Lectin from Opuntia ficus-indica Cladodes (OfiL)

“…Snails in the genus Biomphalaria are intermediate hosts for the larvae of Schistosoma mansoni, and thus the reduction of snail populations in areas where the disease is endemic constitutes an important component of integrated strategies for schistosomiasis control. Biomphalaria glabrata is widely distributed in various parts of South America, Central America, and Africa, and has great importance to public health in Brazil [2,3].…”