Data on Gabonese rodents and their Plasmodium

In this paper present data on the description of rodent species living around human dwelling in some villages of Gabon and their malaria parasites. Rodents are known to colonize various environments, such as forest; domestic or peridomestic environment. They are known to be the hosts of many parasites. Data presented here the circulation of malaria parasites in Gabonese rodents was shown; the estimation of pairwise genetic distances (p-distance) between rodents malaria parasites. We also provide data on rodent species diversity in Gabon. Three hundred and forty-five samples from rodents conserved in biobank of International Center of Medical Researches of Franceville (CIRMF) were used for the study. These samples were collected in six villages of southeastern of Gabon between 2009 and 2016 for routine monitoring of infectious disease. Such data can be used to describe and understanding the evolution and systematics of malaria parasite. This data set support the main findings presented in the research article [1].


Data
The dataset presented here describes methods of identification of the rodent diversity and Plasmodium species infecting the rodents dwelling peri-domestic environment. Fig. 1 describes different steps of characterization of malaria parasites using whole blood or organs (liver/spleen). Fig. 2 described phylogenetic relationships between the rodents captured in Gabon and other from other countries from Genbank using a portion of mitochondrial gene (Cyt-b). Table 1 describes the diversity and percentage each parasite obtained according to the material used and the infected host species. Table 2 presents results of molecular characterization of the species of the rodents. Table 3 presents results of estimation of the pairwise genetic distance (p-distances) between cytochrome b of Plasmodium lineages obtained and others lineages indexed in Genbank and Table 4 S1 presents complete data base of captured rodents.

Experimental design, materials, and methods
All rodents were captured using Tomahawk and Shermann traps in peri-domestic habitats (up to 250 m from the houses). The traps being set inside and around human dwellings, in each city. For each individual, species or genus identification of the rodent was based on morphological characters and the parameters like sex, age, weight or morphometric limbs (foot and arm) were taken (Table S1). After the euthanasia, samples of different organs were collected (liver, spleen, kidney, lung, heart, intestine and brain), frozen and transported to the Centre International de Recherches M edicales de Franceville. Finally, the collected samples were stored at À80 C until needed for molecular analyses.
Total DNA, for each selected animal was extracted from approximately 100 mg of organ tissue (spleen or liver) mixed with 500 ml of PBS solution or 200ml of blood according to the procedures Specifications Table   Subject Ecology, Evolution, Behaviour and Systematics Specific subject area Molecular tools, Parasitology, Phylogenetic analyses, Ecology Type of data

Value of the Data
This data is important for the researchers who work or would like to work in field of evolution of malaria parasites or on ecology of rodents. These data provide several sequences of malaria parasites found in rodents living in peri domestic areas throughout Gabon and could be used in further investigation as base Here we report the cytochrome-b sequences for five central African rodent species, as well as morphometric data for each species.
The diagnostic method developed here in this study could be useful towards other investigations on parasites circulating in blood.
described by Boundenga et al. [2,3]. We ground the samples on an automaton set at 2000 rpm for 5 minutes, then we used 200 ml from each sample for DNA extraction (Fig. 1). Total DNA was extracted from with the DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit (Qiagen, Courtaboeuf, France) and used as template for the detection of Plasmodium parasites of rodents according to a previously described protocol [3]. For amplification of malaria parasites, a nested PCR was performed on each sample targeting a~930bp fragment of the Plasmodium cytochrome b (cyt-b) gene is based on a nested PCR with 2 sets of primers such as described in Ref. [4]. . All amplified products (10ml) were run on 1.5% agarose gels in Tris-acetate-EDTA (TAE) buffer. After analyze, the PCR-amplified products were used as templates for sequencing. DNA sequencing was performed Sanger method. All Plasmodium species identified in our study were mentioned in Table 1. Table 2 show the summary of the pairwise genetic distance estimation. This analyze was done to compare the divergence between sequence de cytochrome-b obtained in our study and sequences listed in Genbank.
To confirm host species, we performed molecular analyses to amplify cyt-b gene of rodents such as described in Refs. [5,6]. Thus, for amplification of cytb gene we used S330 (5 0 eCCAATG ACATGAAAAATCATCG) and S331 (5 0 eGGGGATAGTCCTTCCTTCTTG). PCR conditions for an initial denature period of 94 C for 2 min, followed by 35e40 cycles of 94 C for 30e45 seconds, 55 C for 45 seconds, and 72 C for 1.5 minutes, and the reaction was terminated with a single cycle of 72 C for 7 minutes. The phylogenetic tree was built with cyt-b sequences of rodent obtained and others rodent sequence known so far indexed in Genbank. All results are contained in Table 3, Table 4 S1 and Fig. 2. Fig. 1. Illustration of the different steps of Plasmodium diagnostic in mammals used whole blood or organs (liver/spleen) for DNA extraction. This methods was more explained in our previous studies [2,3] where we used firstly this protocol to identification of malaria parasites in wildlife.   Table 2 Results of molecular characterization of the species of the rodents. This table consider inly the positive individual of our study. The species were identified using the methods described in [5,6]. Thus our data show the presence of these species in the peri-domestic environment of Gabon.  Table 3 The pairwise genetic distance (p-distances) between cytochrome b of Plasmodium lineages obtained in rodents samples shown in Table 1. This estimation was made using Kimura twoparameter model of substitutions.