Chronic urogenital schistosomiasis can lead to squamous cell carcinoma of the bladder. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies the infection withS.haematobiumas a group 1 carcinogen, a definitive cause of cancer. By contrast, hepatointestinal schistosomiasis due to the chronic infection withS.mansoniorS.japonicumassociated with liver periportal fibrosis, does not apparently lead to malignancy. The effects of culturing human epithelial cells, HCV29, established from normal urothelium, and H69, established from cholangiocytes, in the presence ofS.haematobiumorS.mansonieggs were investigated. Cell growth of cells co-cultured with schistosome eggs was monitored in real time, and gene expression analysis of oncogenesis, epithelial to mesenchymal transition and apoptosis pathways was undertaken. Schistosome eggs promoted proliferation of the urothelial cells but inhibited growth of cholangiocytes. In addition, the tumor suppressor P53 pathway was significantly downregulated when exposed to schistosome eggs, and downregulation of estrogen receptor was predicted in urothelial cells exposed only toS.haematobiumeggs. Overall, cell proliferative responses were influenced by both the tissue origin of the epithelial cells and the schistosome species.

Closed recirculating aquatic systems (aquariums) offer a multitude of benefits including the ability to observe and research aquatic animals ex situ, and under controlled environmental conditions

Trypanosoma cruzi is a protozoan parasite transmitted by triatomine insects and causes a range of clinical outcomes in mammalian hosts. Infections can be asymptomatic or cause chronic cardiovascular or gastrointestinal disease or death. The gut microbiome was recently identified as a potential target to further understand Chagas disease pathology due to its connections with cardiovascular and infectious disease severity. We used the Northern Raccoon (Procyon lotor; hereafter, raccoon), a synanthropic wildlife reservoir for T. cruzi in the southern United States, as a model species for characterizing gut microbiota in relation to T. cruzi infection status. Among hunter-harvested raccoons in central Texas, we report a high infection prevalence in which 40 of 45 (88.9%) of individuals were infected with T. cruzi, including several animals with parasite DNA in the colon, a precedent for gastrointestinal Chagas disease, which is infrequently reported in the US. We conducted the first characterization of the fecal and colonic mucosa-bound bacterial community of raccoons via 16S rRNA V4 sequencing and found that T. cruzi infection status explained between 8.14% and 11.63% of the variation in the colonic mucosa-bound microbial community of raccoons (P-value = 0.027, 0.012). The bacterial families Helicobacteraceae and Erysipelotrichaceae (commonly associated with host immune response modulation and inhibition of gut microbial dysbiosis and inflammation, respectively) were significantly less abundant in the colonic mucosa-bound microbial community of T. cruzi-infected raccoons (P-value = 0.047, Log fold change = −1.058). The bacterial family Enterococcaceae (associated with inflammatory disorders in humans and dogs) was a core colonic mucosa-bound microbiota member in T. cruzi-infected raccoons. These preliminary results provide evidence that T. cruzi presence is associated with variation in microbial communities of mammals and incentivize additional evaluation of mammalian gut microbiomes to better understand T. cruzi infections and Chagas disease risk and progression.