Trypanosomes from the T. theileri group in ungulates in the Czech Republic

The Trypanosoma theileri group are blood parasites of ungulates. Confirmed vectors of these protists are horseflies or sheep keds for T. melophagium, but these trypanosomes were also detected in deer keds, mosquitoes and phlebotomus. We targeted on the investigation of possibility mosquitoes acting as vectors and additionally we targeted on the prevalence of T. theileri in mosquitoes at selected locations in the Czech Republic due to previous positive detection there. The measured prevalence has reached 6,4 % in mosquitoes, 4 % in deer keds and 16,7 % in sheep keds. The aim of experimental infections was to discover a potential of mosquitoes and phlebotomus acting as vectors of the T. theileri. Phlebotomus perniciosus and three species of mosquitoes Culex pipiens molestus, Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus and Aedes vexans were used for those experiments. Furthermore, isolates of T. theileri and T. melophagium from different sources were used. The divergence among these isolates and among used species of insect was found. The best results were achieved with Ae. aegypti and isolates from mosquitoes, where prevalence had reached 90,8 %. The infected mosquitoes were used for prediuresis research which had shown infection forms of the trypanosomes in the urine liquid. The phylogenetic analyse of T...