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Trypanosomes transmitted by mosquitoes: occurrence in hosts, transmission, and specificity
Kulich Fialová, Magdaléna
7 Abstract Trypanosomes (Trypanosoma, Kinetoplastea) are dixenous blood protists that require not only a vertebrate host but also a blood-feeding invertebrate to complete their life cycle. Infection of vertebrates can be asymptomatic, but on the other hand can cause serious diseases affecting lives of humans and animals. Thus, researchers usually focus on Trypanosoma species causing Chagas disease and sleeping sickness in humans or nagana and surra in animals, and on their vectors: tsetse flies and kissing bugs. However, mosquitoes are able to transmit trypanosomes as well, specifically, avian trypanosomes and probably mammalian trypanosomes from the T. theileri group. Nevertheless, the role of mosquitoes in the life cycle of trypanosomes has substantial gaps, which are focused in this dissertation. Within the experimental work, it has been demonstrated that mosquitoes of the genus Culex are susceptible hosts of two species of avian trypanosomes: T. thomasbancrofti and T. tertium n. sp. On the other hand, Culex mosquitoes were unsuitable hosts for T. theileri, while the genus Aedes and surprisingly even sand flies (Phlebotomus perniciosus) turned up to be competent vectors. All investigated trypanosomes were able to develop within the guts of mosquitoes and were also found in their prediuretic liquid. This...
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