Cultivation-independent methods reveal differences among bacterial gut microbiota in triatomine vectors of Chagas disease.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Chagas disease is a trypanosomiasis whose agent is the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted to humans by hematophagous bugs known as triatomines. Even though insecticide treatments allow effective control of these bugs 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. The digestive tract of the insect vectors 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. T

SUBMITTER: da Mota FF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3341335 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature