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Prevalence and genetic diversity of Entamoeba species infecting macaques in southwest China

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Abstract

Many colonies of macaques (Macaca fascicularis and Macaca mulatta) are maintained in China, especially in Guangxi and Guizhou. A total of 803 fresh stool samples infected with Entamoeba were obtained from three big colonies of macaques located in southwest China. The samples were examined for the presence of five Entamoeba species using PCR. Entamoeba nuttalli, Entamoeba dispar, Entamoeba coli, and Entamoeba chattoni infections were detected, but Entamoeba histolytica infection was not. This study is the first to report on the prevalence of E. nuttalli in wild macaques from China. Eighteen E. nuttalli isolates and five E. dispar isolates were obtained by culturing the samples in Tanabe–Chiba medium. The serine-rich protein (SRP), ribosomal RNA (rRNA), hexokinase (HXK), glucose-6-phosphate isomerase (GPI), and phosphoglucomutase (PGM) genes of E. nuttalli isolates were compared with other reported isolates. The results showed clear differences among the Chinese E. nuttalli isolates and other isolates based on the SRP gene sequences. However, HXK, GPI, and PGM genes of these strains were similar to those of other isolates. The rRNA genes of E. coli and E. chattoni were also amplified and analyzed from these samples. The results suggested that host species might be a more important factor than geographic location in amebic genetic diversity.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 81171594, 30771878) (to XC) and by JSPS/MEXT KAKENHI (grant nos. 23117009, 24406013) (to HT). We thank Prof. Wu Jianwei who is from Guiyang Medical College for his assistance of collect samples in Guizhou Province.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Meng Feng, Junlong Cai, Xiangyang Min, Yongfeng Fu & Xunjia Cheng

  2. Department of Infectious Diseases, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Kanagawa, 259-1193, Japan

    Meng Feng, Hiroshi Tachibana & Xunjia Cheng

  3. Department of Pharmacology, Guilin Medical College, Guangxi, 541004, China

    Qing Xu

Authors
  1. Meng Feng
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  2. Junlong Cai
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  3. Xiangyang Min
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  4. Yongfeng Fu
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  5. Qing Xu
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  6. Hiroshi Tachibana
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  7. Xunjia Cheng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xunjia Cheng.

Additional information

Meng Feng and Junlong Cai contributed equally to this work.

Nucleotide sequence data reported in the paper are available in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession numbers AB749437 to AB749459.

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Feng, M., Cai, J., Min, X. et al. Prevalence and genetic diversity of Entamoeba species infecting macaques in southwest China. Parasitol Res 112, 1529–1536 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-013-3299-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-013-3299-1

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