Genomic analysis of Strongyloides stercoralis and Strongyloides fuelleborni in Bangladesh

by Veroni de Ree, Tilak Chandra Nath, Priyanka Barua, Dorothee Harbecke, Dongmin Lee, Christian Rödelsperger, Adrian Streit

About 600 million people are estimated to be infected with Strongyloides stercoralis, the species that causes most of the human strongyloidiasis cases. S. stercoralis can also infect non-human primates (NHPs), dogs and cats, rendering these animals putative sources for zoonotic human S. stercoralis infection. S. fuelleborni is normally found in old world NHPs but occasionally also infects humans, mainly in Africa. Dogs in southeast Asia carry at least two types of Strongyloides, only one of which appears to be shared with humans ("dog only" and "human and dog" types). For S. stercoralis with molecular taxonomic information, there is a strong sampling bias towards southeast and east Asia and Australia.

In order to extend the geographic range of sampling, we collected human and dog derived Strongyloides spp. and hookworms from two locations in Bangladesh and subjected them to molecular taxonomic and genomic analysis based on nuclear and mitochondrial sequences. All hookworms found were Necator americanus. Contrary to earlier studies in Asia, we noticed a rather high incidence of S. fuelleborni in humans. Also in this study, we found the two types of S. stercoralis and no indication for genetic isolation from the southeast Asian populations. However, we found one genomically "dog only" type S. stercoralis in a human sample and we found two worms in a dog sample that had a nuclear genome of the "dog only" but a mitochondrial genome of the "human and dog" type.

S. fuelleborni may play a more prominent role as a human parasite in certain places in Asia than previously thought. The introgression of a mitochondria haplotype into the "dog only" population suggests that rare interbreeding between the two S. stercoralis types does occur and that exchange of genetic properties, for example a drug resistance, between the two types is conceivable.