Survivorship of wild caught Mepraia spinolai nymphs: The effect of seasonality and Trypanosoma cruzi infection after feeding and fasting in the laboratory.

Survivorship of wild caught Mepraia spinolai nymphs: The effect of seasonality and Trypanosoma cruzi infection after feeding and fasting in the laboratory. Infect Genet Evol. 2019 Apr 03;: Authors: Cabe AM, Yañez F, Pinto R, López A, Ortiz S, Martin CM, Botto-Mahan C, Solari A Abstract Chagas disease is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. Vector survival is an important variable affecting vectorial capacity to determine parasite transmission risk. The aims of this study are to evaluate vector survival under fasting/starvation conditions of wild-caught Mepraia spinolai after feeding and fasting, the pathogenicity of T. cruzi infection, the parasite burden and seasonal variation in parasite discrete typing units (DTU). The survivorship of M. spinolai nymphs after two continuous artificial feedings was evaluated, assessing their infection with microscopic observation of fecal samples and PCR. Later, insects were fasted/starved until death. We performed qPCR analyses of parasite load in the fecal samples and dead specimens. T. cruzi genotyping was performed using conventional PCR amplicons and hybridization tests. Infection rate was higher in M. spinolai nymphs in summer and spring than in fall. Parasite burden varied from 3 to 250,000 parasites/drop. Survival rate for starved nymph stage II was lower in insects collected in the spring compared to summer and fall. TcII was the most frequent DTU. Mainly metacyclic trypomastigotes were excreted...
Source: Infection, Genetics and Evolution - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Tags: Infect Genet Evol Source Type: research