Diet of the sylvatic triatomine Mepraia spinolai: Association with Trypanosoma cruzi infection near human settlements

The proximity between infectious disease vector populations and human settlements, and the infection prevalence of vector populations can determine the rate of encounters between vectors and humans and hence infection risk. The diet of sylvatic triatomine vectors (kissing bugs) provides evidence about the host species involved in the maintenance of the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease. Here, we characterized the diet of the Chilean endemic triatomine Mepraia spinolai using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), and evaluated the relation between T. cruzi infection status and proximity to human settlements, with the proportion of human and human-associated (domestic and synanthropic) vertebrates in the diet. We sampled 28 M. spinolai populations, covering a latitudinal range of ∼800 km in Chile. For each population, genomic DNA was obtained from M. spinolai intestinal content. We assessed T. cruzi infection individually, and sequenced vertebrate cytochrome b to characterize the diet from infected and uninfected pooled samples. Human and human-associated animals were present in the diet of both T. cruzi-infected (13.50 %) and uninfected (10.43 %) kissing bugs. The proportion of human and human-associated vertebrates in the diet of infected M. spinolai was negatively associated with the distance from surrounding human settlements, but no relationship was detected for uninfected kissing bugs. This pattern could be related to alterations of kissing bug feeding behavior when infected by the protozoan. Our results highlight the relevance of developing a deeper knowledge of the wild transmission cycle of T. cruzi, thus advancing in the surveillance of vectors present in the natural environment near human settlements.