The identification of two Trypanosoma cruzi I genotypes from domestic and sylvatic transmission cycles in Colombia based on a single polymerase chain reaction amplification of the spliced-leader intergenic region

• Main Authors: Lina Marcela Villa, Felipe Guhl, Daniel Zabala, Juan David Ramirez, Daniel Alfonso Urrea, Diana Carolina Hernandez, Zulma Cucunuba, Marleny Montilla, Julio Cesar Carranza, Karina Rueda, Jorge Eduardo Trujillo, Gustavo Adolfo Vallejo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde 2013-11-01
• Series: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.
• Subjects: spliced-leader intergenic region; Trypanosoma cruzi I; PCR; Chagas disease; domestic cycle; sylvatic cycle
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02762013000700932&lng=en&tlng=en

A single polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reaction targeting the spliced-leader intergenic region of Trypanosoma cruzi I was standardised by amplifying a 231 bp fragment in domestic (TcIDOM) strains or clones and 450 and 550 bp fragments in sylvatic strains or clones. This reaction was validated using 44 blind coded samples and 184 non-coded T. cruzi I clones isolated from sylvatic triatomines and the correspondence between the amplified fragments and their domestic or sylvatic origin was determined. Six of the nine strains isolated from acute cases suspected of oral infection had the sylvatic T. cruzi I profile. These results confirmed that the sylvatic T. cruzi I genotype is linked to cases of oral Chagas disease in Colombia. We therefore propose the use of this novel PCR reaction in strains or clones previously characterised as T. cruzi I to distinguish TcIDOMfrom sylvatic genotypes in studies of transmission dynamics, including the verification of population selection within hosts or detection of the frequency of mixed infections by both T. cruzi I genotypes in Colombia.