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Molecular characterization of Atractolytocestus sagittatus (Cestoda: Caryophyllidea), monozoic parasite of common carp, and its differentiation from the invasive species Atractolytocestus huronensis

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Abstract

Sequence structure of complete internal transcribed spacer 1 and 2 (ITS1 and ITS2) of the ribosomal DNA region and partial mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (cox1) gene sequences were studied in the monozoic tapeworm Atractolytocestus sagittatus (Kulakovskaya et Akhmerov, 1965) (Cestoda: Caryophyllidea), a parasite of common carp (Cyprinus carpio carpio L.). Intraindividual sequence diversity was observed in both ribosomal spacers. In ITS1, a total number of 19 recombinant clones yielded eight different sequence types (pairwise sequence identity, 99.7–100%) which, however, did not resemble the structure typical for divergent intragenomic ITS copies (paralogues). Polymorphism was displayed by several single nucleotide mutations present exclusively in single clones, but variation in the number of short repetitive motifs was not observed. In ITS2, a total of 21 recombinant clones yielded ten different sequence types (pairwise sequence identity, 97.5–100%). They were mostly characterized by a varying number of (TCGT)n repeats resulting in assortment of ITS2 sequences into two sequence variants, which reflected the structure specific for ITS paralogues. The third DNA region analysed, mitochondrial cox1 gene (669 bp) was detected to be 100% identical in all studied A. sagittatus individuals. Comparison of molecular data on A. sagittatus with those on Atractolytocestus huronensis Anthony, 1958, an invasive parasite of common carp, has shown that interspecific differences significantly exceeded intraspecific variation in both ribosomal spacers (81.4–82.5% in ITS1, 74.4–75.2% in ITS2) as well as in mitochondrial cox1, which confirms validity of both congeneric tapeworms parasitic in the same fish host.

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Acknowledgements

The tapeworms studied were collected by T. S. and Dr. Roman Kuchta, Institute of Parasitology, České Budějovice, Czech Republic, during their stay in Japan in 2007, which was supported by the Research Projects K00-05 and S06-02 of the Lake Biwa Museum, directed by M. J. Grygier. This study was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under contract APVV-51-062205, the Grant Agency of the Slovak Republic (project VEGA 2/0014/10), Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (524/08/0885), Institute of Parasitology, České Budějovice (projects nos. Z60220518 and LC522), and project of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic (MSM 60076605801). Postdoctoral stay of J. Š. in The Natural History Museum in London was funded by a Marie Curie Fellowship (project no. 235123, FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008). This study was realized as part of the project “Centre of Excellence for Parasitology” (Code ITMS: 26220120022) based on support of the Operational Programme “Research & Development” funded from the European Regional Development Fund (rate 0.3).

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Correspondence to Ivica Králová-Hromadová.

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Nucleotide sequence data reported in this paper are available in the GenBank™, EMBL and DDBJ databases under the accession numbers JF424629–JF424669.

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Bazsalovicsová, E., Králová-Hromadová, I., Štefka, J. et al. Molecular characterization of Atractolytocestus sagittatus (Cestoda: Caryophyllidea), monozoic parasite of common carp, and its differentiation from the invasive species Atractolytocestus huronensis . Parasitol Res 110, 1621–1629 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-011-2673-0

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