JAC Advance Access originally published online on May 22, 2006
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2006 58(1):216-219; doi:10.1093/jac/dkl192
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Dissimilar distribution of Trypanosoma cruzi clones in humans after chemotherapy with allopurinol and itraconazole
1 Programa de Biología Celular y Molecular, Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile Independencia 1027, Código postal 70086, Santiago 7, Chile 2 Escuela de Salud Pública, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile Independencia 999, Código postal 9183, Santiago 7, Chile
Received 28 October 2005; returned 4 January 2006; revised 6 April 2006; accepted 12 April 2006
*Corresponding author. Tel: +56-2-978-6062; Fax: +56-2-735-5580; E-mail: asolari{at}med.uchile.cl
Objectives: The aim of this work was to study the distribution of Trypanosoma cruzi clones after treatment failure with itraconazole or allopurinol in infected humans.
Methods: Blood samples from treated and untreated individuals were used to detect T. cruzi by PCR assays and were confirmed by hybridization tests using total kinetoplast DNA as a universal probe. Also, xenodiagnosis (XD) tests were performed with Triatoma infestans fed from the same group of patients. We performed Southern-blot analyses of PCR products from blood or XD samples using a panel of four genotype-specific probes: corresponding to T. cruzi clones TcI, TcIIb, TcIId and TcIIe. The membranes were hybridized with radiolabelled probes and exposed in a Personal Molecular Imager.
Results: When comparing the presence of T. cruzi clones in the allopurinol-treated group with the non-treated group significant differences were only observed for XD samples. Clone TcI was present in 9/13 (69.2%) of the XD samples of the treated group, but only in 8/27 (29.6%) in the non-treated group (P = 0.0178). When the itraconazole-treated group and the control group were compared, significant differences were found in both the blood and XD samples. In blood, the clone TcIIb was detected in 6/17 (35.5%) of the treated group and in 18/27 (66.7%) of the non-treated group (P = 0.0207). When XD samples were analysed, the clone TcI was observed in 14/17 (82.3%) of the itraconazole-treated group but only in 8/27 (29.6%) of the control group (P = 0.0006), which suggests resistance of this clone to itraconazole.
Conclusions: We detected a dissimilar distribution of T. cruzi clones in treated and untreated groups of patients. The presence of TcI increased in patients treated with allopurinol and itraconazole, whereas the presence of TcIIb decreased in itraconazole-treated patients. The type of T. cruzi clone that prevails suggests that TcI is resistant to both drugs and that TcIIb is susceptible to itraconazole.
Keywords: Chagas' disease , T. cruzi , protozoa
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