Morphometric, genetic diversity and phylogenetic analysis of Taenia hydatigena (Pallas, 1766) larval stage in Iranian livestock

• Published in: Parasitology 2020-02, Vol.147 (2), p.231-239
• Main Authors: Sarvi, Shahabeddin, Ebrahimi Behrestaghi, Laya, Alizadeh, Abbas, Abdollah Hosseini, Seyed, Gohardieh, Shaban, Bastani, Reza, Yazdani Charati, Jamshid, Daryani, Ahmad, Amouei, Afsaneh, Spotin, Adel, Gholami, Shirzad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Base Sequence; Biodiversity; Biological evolution; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA, Helminth - genetics; Evolution; Evolutionary biology; Genetic analysis; Genetic diversity; Genetic variance; Genetic Variation; Goat Diseases - epidemiology; Goat Diseases - parasitology; Goats; Haplotypes; Hepatitis; Iran - epidemiology; Livestock; Mitochondria; Mitochondrial DNA; Morphology; Nucleotide sequence; Parasites; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Polymerase chain reaction; RNA, Helminth - genetics; rRNA 12S; Sheep; Sheep Diseases - epidemiology; Sheep Diseases - parasitology; Species diversity; Taenia - classification; Taenia - genetics; Taenia - growth & development; Taenia hydatigena; Taeniasis - epidemiology; Taeniasis - parasitology; Taeniasis - veterinary; Variance analysis
• ISSN: 0031-1820; 1469-8161
• DOI: 10.1017/S0031182019001434

Cysticercus tenuicollis as metacestode of Taenia hydatigena is the most prevalent taeniid species in livestock. Eighty-eight C. tenuicollis samples were collected from sheep (n = 44) and goats (n = 44) of the northern Iran from 2015 to 2016. The isolated parasites were characterized by morphometric keys. The DNA of the larval stage was extracted, amplified and sequenced targeting mitochondrial 12S rRNA and Cox 1 markers. A significant difference in larval rostellar hook length was observed in 12S rRNA haplotypes. Analysis of molecular variance of 12S rRNA indicated a moderate genetic diversity in the C. tenuicollis isolates. The pairwise sequence distance of C. tenuicollis showed an intra-species diversity of 0.3-0.5% and identity of 99.5-100%. Using the 12S rRNA sequence data we found a moderate genetic difference (Fst; 0.05421) in C. tenucollis isolates collected from livestock of the northern and southeastern regions of Iran. We concluded that the genetic variants of C. tenuicollis are being undoubtedly distributing mostly in different parts of Iran. Further studies with a larger number of T. hydatigena isolates collected from various intermediate and definitive hosts are needed to study this evolutionary assumption and also to determine the apparent genetic differences observed in the studied regions.