Exploring the environmental diversity of kinetoplastid flagellates in the high-throughput DNA sequencing era

Claudia Masini D’avila-Levy , Carolina Boucinha , Alexei Kostygov , Helena Lúcia Carneiro Santos , Karina Alessandra Morelli , Anastasiia Grybchuk-Ieremenko , Linda Duval (1) , Jan Votypka , Vyacheslav Yurchenko , Philippe Grellier (1) , Julius Lukeš

1 MCAM - Molécules de Communication et Adaptation des Micro-organismes

The class Kinetoplastea encompasses both free-living and parasitic species from a wide range of hosts. Several representatives of this group are responsible for severe human diseases and for economic losses in agriculture and livestock. While this group encompasses over 30 genera, most of the available information has been derived from the vertebrate pathogenic genera Leishmania and Trypanosoma. Recent studies of the previously neglected groups of Kinetoplastea indicated that the actual diversity is much higher than previously thought. This article discusses the known segment of kinetoplastid diversity and how gene-directed Sanger sequencing and next-generation sequencing methods can help to deepen our knowledge of these interesting protists.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Biodiversité; Systématique, phylogénie et taxonomie; Microbiologie et Parasitologie; Protistologie

Claudia Masini D’avila-Levy, Carolina Boucinha, Alexei Kostygov, Helena Lúcia Carneiro Santos, Karina Alessandra Morelli, et al.. Exploring the environmental diversity of kinetoplastid flagellates in the high-throughput DNA sequencing era. Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, 2015, 110 (8), pp.956-965. ⟨10.1590/0074-02760150253⟩. ⟨mnhn-02047333⟩