Page 248 - Resúmen - XXV Congreso Latinoamericano de Parasitología - FLAP

S1-61

Isolation of Naegleria australiensis and N. philippinensis in the Monjolinho

River - Brazil

Bellini, Natália Karla ; Issa, Matheus ; Reyes-Batlle, María ; Lorenzo-Morales, Jacob ;
2
2
1
1
Thiemann, Otavio Henrique
3
1 Universidade de São Paulo/ Instituto de Física de São Carlos; Universidad de La Laguna/Instituto
2
Universitario de Enfermedades Tropicales y Salud Pública de Canarias; Universidade de São Paulo/
3
Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade Federal de São Carlos/Depto. de Genética e Evolução

Many genera of protozoans remained for a long standing not well-known until the emergence of pathogenic
species that shaded light into them. The importance of Naegleria genus was worldwide recognized 56 years
after its discovery, due to the rising of the pathogenic specie Naegleria fowleri. From the 47 species already
described, only four of them have been associated to encephalitis: N. fowleri capable of infecting humans
and N australiensis, N. philippinensis and N. italica infecting mice models. Considering the victims had a
previous water contact prior to the infection, several reports have exploited freshwater systems aiming to
broaden the knowledge on Naegleria presence. However, the Brazilian landscape on it is scarce and due
to its abundance of freshwater, we might be dealing with underestimated cases. The present research
intends to address it by providing techniques for the isolation and characterization of Naegleria in the city
of São Carlos. The methodology includes: collection of water in five sites in the Monjolinho River Basin,
limnological water characterization, morphological and molecular biology analyses to search ITS rDNA
genes. Three temperatures were applied considering different thermal conditions, 26, 37 and 44º C. The
trophozoites were morphologically characterized by optical microscopy including staining slides and by
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and confirmed against the Page’s Classification guide. Through
culture on NNA plates, the amoeba growth was observed in all sampling sites and, after DNA extraction
followed by Naegleria PCRs and Sanger sequencing, the results revealed hitherto the presence of two
potentially pathogenic species: N. australiensis and N. phillipinensis. The effort envisaged in this work
would bring an advance not only to characterize Naegleria and contribute to enlarge the knowledge of its
distribution in Brazil, but also suggests that other FLA genus can be equally isolated in Brazilian freshwater
systems.

246
RESÚMENES DE CARTELES