Congenital Chagas disease in Bolivia is not associated with DNA polymorphism of Trypanosoma cruzi.
This study aims to typify the Trypanosoma cruzi (sub)lineage(s) in umbilical cord blood of congenitally infected Bolivian newborns, using PCR amplifications of "Region Markers", mini-exon or kDNA fragments followed by hybridization or sequencing. New probes were also designed to distinguish three variants within the TcIId sublineage. The IIb, IId, or IIe T. cruzi sublineages, as well as different variants of the IId sublineage, were detected in infected neonates, whereas mixed infections were not found. The frequencies of the IId sublineage were similar in neonates (95.1%) and adults of the same area (94.1%). The IId-infected newborns displayed either asymptomatic, or severe and fatal clinical forms of congenital Chagas disease, as well as low or high parasitemia. Altogether these data show that T. cruzi DNA polymorphism, based on the presently available markers, is not associated with the occurrence of congenital infection or the development of severe clinical forms of congenital Chagas disease.
Virreira
Myrna
M
Laboratoire de Chimie Biologique, Faculté de Médecine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. mvirreir@ulb.ac.be
Alonso-Vega
Cristina
C
Solano
Marco
M
Jijena
Juan
J
Brutus
Laurent
L
Bustamante
Zulema
Z
Truyens
Carine
C
Schneider
Dominique
D
Torrico
Faustino
F
Carlier
Yves
Y
Svoboda
Michal
M
D000818:Animals; D001838:Bolivia / Q000453:epidemiology; D014355:Chagas Disease / Q000151:congenital / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000469:parasitology*; D016054:DNA, Protozoan / Q000032:analysis; D005312:Fetal Blood; D006801:Humans; D018445:Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D014349:Trypanosoma cruzi / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification
D016054:DNA, Protozoan