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Genetic structure of deltamethrin-resistant populations of Triatoma infestans (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) in the Gran Chaco

  • Genetics, Evolution, and Phylogeny - Original Paper
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Abstract

The genetic structure of natural populations offers insight into the complexities of their dynamics, information that can be relevant to vector control strategies. Microsatellites are useful neutral markers to investigate the genetic structure and gene flow in Triatoma infestans, one of the main vectors of Chagas disease in South America. Recently, a heterogeneous pyrethroid-resistant hotspot was found in the Argentine Gran Chaco, characterized by the highest levels of deltamethrin resistance found at the present time. We applied population genetics analyses to microsatellite and village data and search for associations between the genetic variability and the heterogeneous toxicological pattern previously found. We genotyped 10 microsatellite loci in 67 T. infestans from 6 villages with no, low, and high pyrethroid resistance. The most genetically diverse populations were those susceptible or with low values of resistance. In contrast, high-resistance populations had lower herozygosity and some monomorphic loci. A negative association was found between variability and resistant ratios. Global and pairwise FSTs indicated significant differentiation between populations. The only susceptible population was discriminated in all the performed studies. Low-resistance populations were also differentiated by a discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) and were composed mostly by the same two genetic clusters according to STRUCTURE Bayesian algorithm. Individuals from the high-resistance populations were overlapped in the DAPC and shared significant proportions of a genetic cluster. These observations suggest that the resistant populations might have a common origin, although more genetic markers and samples are required to test this hypothesis more rigorously.

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Availability of data and material (data transparency)

Genepop and STRUCTURE files are available upon e-mail request to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the personnel of the NCP of Argentine and the Chagas Program of the Chaco Province as well as Dr. V.A. Confalonieri for the use of Nanodrop to estimate DNA concentrations. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous version of this article.

Funding

This investigation received financial support from Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Técnológica (PICT 2014–1952, PICT 2015–1905), Fundación CAECE (Resol.443/18), and CONICET (PIP 0198 CO).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Eco-Epidemiología, Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Intendente Güiraldes 2160, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EGA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Romina V. Piccinali

  2. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires (IEGEBA), CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Romina V. Piccinali

  3. CIPEIN Centro de Investigaciones de Plagas e Insecticidas, CONICET-UNIDEF, Villa Martelli, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Georgina Fronza & Ariel C. Toloza

  4. Laboratorio de Ecología de Enfermedades Transmitidas por Vectores, Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental (IIIA-UNSAM), Campus Miguelete, 25 de Mayo y Francia, San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Georgina Fronza

  5. Laboratorio de Investigación en Triatominos (LIT), Centro de Referencia de Vectores (CeReVe), Coordinación de Vectores, Ministerio de Salud, Santa María de Punilla, Córdoba, Argentina

    Gastón A. Mougabure-Cueto

  6. Departamento de Biología, Universidad CAECE, Av. de Mayo 866, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Ariel C. Toloza

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  1. Romina V. Piccinali
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  2. Georgina Fronza
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  3. Gastón A. Mougabure-Cueto
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  4. Ariel C. Toloza
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Contributions

Conceived the experiment: RVP, ACT, GF. Analyzed data: RVP, GF. Interpreted and discussed the results: RVP, ACT, FG, GAM-C. Wrote the article: RVP and ACT.

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Correspondence to Romina V. Piccinali.

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No human participants, human data, or human tissue were used in the present study. Insects were fed on pigeon blood once per week according to a protocol approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of CIPEIN (IACUC/CICUAL 1531/13).

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Online Resource 1

Inference of best K value in the STRUCTURE runs of T. infestans from the Argentine Chaco with different degrees of insecticide resistance. a. Plot of the mean likelihood values L(K) and variance against K, the number of clusters. b. Plot of the Delta K method (Evanno et al. 2005). Delta K: statistic based on the rate of change in the log probability of data between successive K values (PDF 108 kb)

Online Resource 2

Population structure of T. infestans from the Argentine Chaco with different degrees of insecticide resistance inferred with STRUCTURE using the RECESSIVEALLELS option. a. K = 2. B. K = 4. Each bar represents an individual and each color the proportion of the genome assigned to each cluster (TIF 17611 kb)

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Piccinali, R.V., Fronza, G., Mougabure-Cueto, G.A. et al. Genetic structure of deltamethrin-resistant populations of Triatoma infestans (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) in the Gran Chaco. Parasitol Res 119, 3305–3313 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-020-06789-y

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