Diversity of Entamoeba spp. in African Great Apes and Humans

Understanding the complex Entamoeba communities in the mammalian intestine has been, so far, complicated by the lack of a suitable approach for molecular detection of multiple variants co-occurring in mixed infections. Here, we report on the application of a high throughput sequencing approach based on partial 18S rDNA using Illumina MiSeq platform. We describe, for the first time, the Entamoeba communities in humans, free-ranging western lowland gorillas and central chimpanzees living in close proximity in the periphery of the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon. We detected 36 Entamoeba haplotypes belonging to six haplotype clusters, E. hartmanni, E. dispar, E. nuttalli, E. histolytica, E. invadens and E. coli and containing the haplotypes with both high and low host specificity. Most of the detected haplotypes belonged to commensal entamoebas, however the pathogenic species E. histolytica and E. nuttalli were also detected. We observed that some Entamoeba haplotypes are shared among studied hosts, indicating their zoonotic potential. The findings are important not only for understanding the epidemiology of amoebiasis in humans in rural African localities, but also in the context of wild great apes conservation.