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Ecological divergence and hybridization of Neotropical Leishmania parasites
Author(s)
Rega Institute for Medical Research
Nicholas J. Savill
University of Edinburgh
Hideo Imamura
Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel
Mandy Sanders
Wellcome Sanger Institute
Ilse Maes
Instituut voor Tropische Geneeskunde
Sinclair Cooper
University of Edinburgh
David Mateus
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Marlene Jara
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
Vanessa Adaui
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
Jorge Arévalo
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
Alejandro Llanos‐Cuentas
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
Lineth García
Universidad Mayor de San Simón
Elisa Cupolillo
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz
Michael A. Miles
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Matthew Berriman
Wellcome Sanger Institute
Achim Schnaufer
University of Edinburgh
James A. Cotton
Wellcome Sanger Institute
Jean‐Claude Dujardin
University of Antwerp
Date Issued
21 de septiembre de 2020
Type
Article
Volume
117
Issue
40
Series/Report No.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Start Page
25159
End Page
25168
ISSN
0027-8424
1091-6490
Abstract
Significance Parasites are interesting models for studying speciation processes because they have a high potential for specialization, thanks to the intimate ecological association with their hosts and vectors. Yet little is known about the circumstances under which new parasite lineages emerge. Here we studied the genome diversity of parasites of the Leishmania braziliensis species complex that inhabit both Amazonian and Andean biotas in Peru. We identify three major parasite lineages that occupy particular ecological niches and show that these emerged during forestation changes over the past 150,000 y. We furthermore discovered that meiotic recombination between Amazonian and Andean lineages resulted in full-genome hybrids presenting mixed mitochondrial genomes, providing insights into the genetic consequences of hybridization in parasitic protozoa.
Keywords