What is it about?
The digestive tract of the triatomines (hematophagous bugs that transmit to T. cruzi to humans) in which T. cruzi develops has been much less well investigated than blood from its human hosts and constitutes a dynamic environment with very different conditions. Thus, we investigated the composition of the predominant bacterial species of the microbiota in insect vectors from Rhodnius, Triatoma, Panstrongylus and Dipetalogaster genera. We found that the predominant species of the bacterial microbiota in triatomines form a group of low complexity whose structure differs according to the vector genus.
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Why is it important?
Even though insecticide treatments allow the effective control of triatomines in most Latin American countries where Chagas disease is endemic, the disease still affects a large proportion of the population of South America. The features of the disease in humans have been extensively studied, and the genome of the parasite has been sequenced, but no effective drug is yet available to treat Chagas disease.
Perspectives
The microbiota of triatomine guts represents one of the factors that may interfere with T. cruzi transmission and virulence in humans. The knowledge of its composition according to insect species may be important for designing measures of biological control, such as paratransgenesis, against T. cruzi.
Nicolas Carels
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cultivation-Independent Methods Reveal Differences among Bacterial Gut Microbiota in Triatomine Vectors of Chagas Disease, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, May 2012, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0001631.
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