Molecular Investigation Confirms Genus Bats as Common Hosts of in Brazil.

spp. and some other blood parasites belonging to the order Haemosporida are the focus of many epidemiological studies worldwide. However, haemosporidian parasites from wild animals are largely neglected in scientific research. For example, parasites, which are exclusive to bats, are described in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, but little is known about their presence and genetic diversity in the New World. In this study, 224 samples of bats from remaining fragments of the Atlantic Forest and Pantanal biomes, as well as urbanized areas in southern and southeastern Brazil, were analyzed for the presence of haemosporidian parasites by PCR of the mitochondrial gene that encodes cytochrome b (). The PCR fragments of the positive samples were sequenced and analyzed by the Bayesian inference method to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships between parasites from bats in Brazil and other countries. Sequences from Brazilian lineages of were recovered in a clade with sequences from and close to the one sequence obtained in Panama, the only available sequence for the American continent. This clade was restricted to bats of the family Vespertilionidae and distinct from , a parasite species mainly found in bats of the family Miniopteridae. The detection of and the genetic proximity to were further confirmed with the amplification of two other genes ( and ). We also found a Haemosporida parasite sequence in a sample of collected in the Pantanal biome, which presents phylogenetic proximity with avian sequences. Morphological and molecular studies are still needed to conclude and describe the species in Brazilian bats in more detail and to confirm parasites in bats. Nevertheless, these molecular results in Brazilian bats confirm the importance of studying these neglected genera.