Investigation of the bacterial communities associated with females of Lutzomyia sand fly species from South America

Sant'anna, Mauricio R V and Darby, Alistair C and Brazil, Reginaldo P and Montoya-Lerma, James and Dillon, Viv M and Bates, Paul A and Dillon, Rod J (2012) Investigation of the bacterial communities associated with females of Lutzomyia sand fly species from South America. PLoS ONE, 7 (8). e42531.

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Abstract

Phlebotomine sand flies are vectors of Leishmania that are acquired by the female sand fly during blood feeding on an infected mammal. Leishmania parasites develop exclusively in the gut lumen during their residence in the insect before transmission to a suitable host during the next blood feed. Female phlebotomine sand flies are blood feeding insects but their life style of visiting plants as well as animals, and the propensity for larvae to feed on detritus including animal faeces means that the insect host and parasite are exposed to a range of microorganisms. Thus, the sand fly microbiota may interact with the developing Leishmania population in the gut. The aim of the study was to investigate and identify the bacterial diversity associated with wild adult female Lutzomyia sand flies from different geographical locations in the New World. The bacterial phylotypes recovered from 16S rRNA gene clone libraries obtained from wild caught adult female Lutzomyia sand flies were estimated from direct band sequencing after denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of bacterial 16 rRNA gene fragments. These results confirm that the Lutzomyia sand flies contain a limited array of bacterial phylotypes across several divisions. Several potential plant-related bacterial sequences were detected including Erwinia sp. and putative Ralstonia sp. from two sand fly species sampled from 3 geographically separated regions in Brazil. Identification of putative human pathogens also demonstrated the potential for sand flies to act as vectors of bacterial pathogens of medical importance in addition to their role in Leishmania transmission.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
PLoS ONE
Additional Information:
© 2012 Sant’Anna et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/biologicalsciences/biomedicalandlifesciences
Subjects:
?? biomedical and life sciencesgeneral agricultural and biological sciencesgeneral biochemistry,genetics and molecular biologygeneral medicineagricultural and biological sciences(all)biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology(all)medicine(all)qr355 virolog ??
ID Code:
57686
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
20 Aug 2012 11:08
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
21 Sep 2024 00:28