Tracking zoonotic pathogens using blood-sucking flies as 'flying syringes'
- Biogéosciences Unit, UMR 6282 CNRS-uB-EPHE-AgroSup, Équipe Écologie-Évolutive, France
- Centre International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville, Gabon
- UMR 224-5290 IRD-CNRS-UM, Centre IRD de Montpellier, France
- Université de Yaoundé 1, Cameroon
Abstract
About 60% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are of zoonotic origin. Their increasing number requires the development of new methods for early detection and monitoring of infectious agents in wildlife. Here, we investigated whether blood meals from hematophagous flies could be used to identify the infectious agents circulating in wild vertebrates. To this aim, 1230 blood-engorged flies were caught in the forests of Gabon. Identified blood meals (30%) were from 20 vertebrate species including mammals, birds and reptiles. Among them, 9% were infected by different extant malaria parasites among which some belonged to known parasite species, others to new parasite species or to parasite lineages for which only the vector was known. This study demonstrates that using hematophagous flies as 'flying syringes' constitutes an interesting approach to investigate blood-borne pathogen diversity in wild vertebrates and could be used as an early detection tool of zoonotic pathogens.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie
- Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono
- Flobert Njiokou
- François Bretagnolle
- Franck Prugnolle
- Christophe Paupy
Service de Coopération et d'Action Culturelle de l'ambassade de France au Gabon
- Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono
- François Bretagnolle
LMI ZOFAC IRD
- Benjamin Ollomo
- Franck Prugnolle
- Christophe Paupy
CIRMF
- Paul-Yannick Bitome-Essono
- Benjamin Ollomo
- Diego Ayala
- Virginie Rougeron
- Franck Prugnolle
- Christophe Paupy
ANR JCJC 07-2012-ORIGIN
- Virginie Rougeron
- Franck Prugnolle
- Christophe Paupy
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Ben Cooper, Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Thailand
Version history
- Received: October 4, 2016
- Accepted: March 14, 2017
- Accepted Manuscript published: March 28, 2017 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: May 11, 2017 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2017, Bitome-Essono et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 5,636
- views
-
- 710
- downloads
-
- 33
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Tracking zoonotic pathogens using blood-sucking flies as 'flying syringes'
eLife 6:e22069.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.22069
Further reading
-
- Ecology
Diaphorina citri serves as the primary vector for ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas),’ the bacterium associated with the severe Asian form of huanglongbing. CLas-positive D. citri are more fecund than their CLas-negative counterparts and require extra energy expenditure. Therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms linking metabolism and reproduction is of particular importance. In this study, we found adipokinetic hormone (DcAKH) and its receptor (DcAKHR) were essential for increasing lipid metabolism and fecundity in response to CLas infection in D. citri. Knockdown of DcAKH and DcAKHR not only resulted in the accumulation of triacylglycerol and a decline of glycogen, but also significantly decreased fecundity and CLas titer in ovaries. Combined in vivo and in vitro experiments showed that miR-34 suppresses DcAKHR expression by binding to its 3’ untranslated region, whilst overexpression of miR-34 resulted in a decline of DcAKHR expression and CLas titer in ovaries and caused defects that mimicked DcAKHR knockdown phenotypes. Additionally, knockdown of DcAKH and DcAKHR significantly reduced juvenile hormone (JH) titer and JH signaling pathway genes in fat bodies and ovaries, including the JH receptor, methoprene-tolerant (DcMet), and the transcription factor, Krüppel homolog 1 (DcKr-h1), that acts downstream of it, as well as the egg development related genes vitellogenin 1-like (DcVg-1-like), vitellogenin A1-like (DcVg-A1-like) and the vitellogenin receptor (DcVgR). As a result, CLas hijacks AKH/AKHR-miR-34-JH signaling to improve D. citri lipid metabolism and fecundity, while simultaneously increasing the replication of CLas, suggesting a mutualistic interaction between CLas and D. citri ovaries.
-
- Ecology
Spatial and temporal associations between sympatric species underpin biotic interactions, structure ecological assemblages, and sustain ecosystem functioning and stability. However, the resilience of interspecific spatiotemporal associations to human activity remains poorly understood, particularly in mountain forests where anthropogenic impacts are often pervasive. Here, we applied context-dependent Joint Species Distribution Models to a systematic camera-trap survey dataset from a global biodiversity hotspot in eastern Himalayas to understand how prominent human activities in mountain forests influence species associations within terrestrial mammal communities. We obtained 10,388 independent detections of 17 focal species (12 carnivores and five ungulates) from 322 stations over 43,163 camera days of effort. We identified a higher incidence of positive associations in habitats with higher levels of human modification (87%) and human presence (83%) compared to those located in habitats with lower human modification (64%) and human presence (65%) levels. We also detected a significant reduction of pairwise encounter time at increasing levels of human disturbance, corresponding to more frequent encounters between pairs of species. Our findings indicate that human activities can push mammals together into more frequent encounters and associations, which likely influences the coexistence and persistence of wildlife, with potential far-ranging ecological consequences.
