Additional Haplogroups of Toxoplasma gondii out of Africa: Population Structure and Mouse-Virulence of Strains from Gabon

Prevalence of human toxoplasmosis in tropical African countries usually exceeds 50%. Its role as a major opportunistic infection of AIDS patients is regularly described. Due to the lack of investigation, congenital infection is certainly underestimated in Africa. Incidence of Toxoplasma ocular disease is higher in Africa and South America than in Europe. Severe cases in immunocompetent patients were described after infection acquired in Amazonia, but nothing is known about such cases in Africa. Several studies argued for a role of genotypes in the clinical expression of human toxoplasmosis, and for a geographical structuration of Toxoplasma across continents. Genetic data concerning isolates from Africa are scarce. Here, apart from the worldwide Type III, we described two main haplogroups, Africa 1 and 3. We detected genetic exchanges between urban centers favored by trade exchange and transportation. It shows how important human influence is, even in shaping the genetic structure of a zoonotic disease agent. Finding of identical haplogroups in South America suggested that these African and American strains share a common ancestor. As a higher pathogenicity in human of South American genotypes has been described, this similarity of genotypes should encourage further clinical studies with genotype analysis in Africa

Self-Mating in the Definitive Host Potentiates Clonal Outbreaks of the Apicomplexan Parasites Sarcocystis neurona and Toxoplasma gondii

Tissue-encysting coccidia, including Toxoplasma gondii and Sarcocystis neurona, are heterogamous parasites with sexual and asexual life stages in definitive and intermediate hosts, respectively. During its sexual life stage, T. gondii reproduces either by genetic out-crossing or via clonal amplification of a single strain through self-mating. Out-crossing has been experimentally verified as a potent mechanism capable of producing offspring possessing a range of adaptive and virulence potentials. In contrast, selfing and other life history traits, such as asexual expansion of tissue-cysts by oral transmission among intermediate hosts, have been proposed to explain the genetic basis for the clonal population structure of T. gondii. In this study, we investigated the contributing roles self-mating and sexual recombination play in nature to maintain clonal population structures and produce or expand parasite clones capable of causing disease epidemics for two tissue encysting parasites. We applied high-resolution genotyping against strains isolated from a T. gondii waterborne outbreak that caused symptomatic disease in 155 immune-competent people in Brazil and a S. neurona outbreak that resulted in a mass mortality event in Southern sea otters. In both cases, a single, genetically distinct clone was found infecting outbreak-exposed individuals. Furthermore, the T. gondii outbreak clone was one of several apparently recombinant progeny recovered from the local environment. Since oocysts or sporocysts were the infectious form implicated in each outbreak, the expansion of the epidemic clone can be explained by self-mating. The results also show that out-crossing preceded selfing to produce the virulent T. gondii clone. For the tissue encysting coccidia, self-mating exists as a key adaptation potentiating the epidemic expansion and transmission of newly emerged parasite clones that can profoundly shape parasite population genetic structures or cause devastating disease outbreaks

Cross section measurements of the B-10(d, n(0))C-11 reaction below 160 keV

New data were taken at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory to investigate the plausibility of using low energy deuterons and the (10)B(d, n)(11)C reaction as a portable source of 6.3 MeV neutrons. Analysis of the data at and below incident deuteron energies of 160 keV indicates an no neutron cross section that is lower than previous estimates by at least three orders of magnitude. In separate runs, deuterons with two different energies (160 and 140 keV) were stopped in a (10)B target. The resulting no neutrons of approximately 6.3 MeV were detected at angles between 0 degrees and 150 degrees. The angle integrated yields were used to determine the astrophysical S factor for this reaction assuming a constant value for the S factor below 160 keV. The cross sections reported between 130 and 160 keV were calculated using the extracted value of the S factor. The measured no cross section is several orders of magnitude smaller than previous results, thus eliminating (10)B(d, n)(11)C as a portable source of intense neutrons with low energy deuteron beams on the order of tens of microamps. In order to gain insight into the reaction dynamics at these low energies the cross section results have been compared with results from calculations using the distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) and a detailed Hauser-Feshbach calculation performed by the authors. The angular distribution is consistent with the Hauser-Feshbach calculation suggesting a statistical compound nucleus reaction rather than a direct reaction