Targeting the Gut Microbiota in Chagas Disease: What Do We Know so Far?

Creators: Duarte-Silva, Eduardo; Morais, Livia H.; Clarke, Gerard; Savino, Wilson; Peixoto, Christina

Abstract

Chagas disease (CD) is a tropical and still neglected disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi that affects >8 million of people worldwide. Although limited, emerging data suggest that gut microbiota dysfunction may be a new mechanism underlying CD pathogenesis. T. cruzi infection leads to changes in the gut microbiota composition of vector insects, mice, and humans. Alterations in insect and mice microbiota due to T. cruzi have been associated with a decreased immune response against the parasite, influencing the establishment and progression of infection. Further, changes in the gut microbiota are linked with inflammatory and neuropsychiatric disorders, comorbid conditions in CD. Therefore, this review article critically analyses the current data on CD and the gut microbiota of insects, mice, and humans and discusses its importance for CD pathogenesis. An enhanced understanding of host microbiota will be critical for the development of alternative therapeutic approaches to target CD, such as gut microbiota-directed interventions.

Additional Information

© 2020 Duarte-Silva, Morais, Clarke, Savino and Peixoto. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Received: 21 July 2020; Accepted: 12 November 2020; Published: 10 December 2020. The authors express their gratitude to Oswaldo Cruz Foundation of Pernambuco (FIOCRUZ-PE), Research Excellence Program – Aggeu Magalhães Institute (IAM PROEP#400208/2019-9), Knowledge Generation Program – Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ; #VPPCB-007-FIO-18-2-17), the Brazilian National Institute of Science and Technology on Neuroimmunomodulation (INCT-NIM; #465489/2014-1) and Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq; #301777/2012-8) for research support. This study was funded in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001, and FAPERJ, Brazil, as well as FOCEM/Mercosur (Grant 003/2011). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. APC Microbiome Ireland is a research institute funded by Science Foundation Ireland (grant number SFI/12/RC/2273 P2). Author Contributions. ED-S conceived the study, performed the literature search, data collection, data analysis, wrote the manuscript, and created the figures under the supervision of CP. LM contributed to the writing of the manuscript. CP, GC, LM, and WS critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of this manuscript. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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