Deep Sequencing to Detect Diversity of Trypanosoma cruzi Infection in Patients Coinfected With Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Chagas Disease

J Infect Dis. 2022 Jan 18;225(2):243-247. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiab350.

Abstract

Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, can reactivate and cause severe acute disease in immunocompromised patients such as those infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). We conducted amplicon deep sequencing of a 327-bp fragment of the tcscd5 gene using an Ion Torrent PGM directly from clinical samples from HIV patients with high parasitemia. We describe the within-host diversity, both characterizing the discrete typing unit of the infections and confirming the presence of multistrain infections, directly from clinical samples. This method can rapidly provide information on the genetic diversity of T. cruzi infection, which can have direct impacts on clinical disease.

Keywords: Trypanosoma cruzi; tcsc5d; Chagas disease; HIV; amplicon deep sequencing; discrete typing unit; genetic diversity; multiclonality.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Chagas Disease / complications*
  • Coinfection
  • Genetic Variation
  • HIV
  • HIV Infections / blood
  • HIV Infections / complications*
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Trypanosoma cruzi / genetics
  • Trypanosoma cruzi / isolation & purification*