Abstract
Metagonimus Katsurada, 1912 is a genus of small intestinal parasites. The genus comprises eight species, primarily from far-eastern Asia, with two exceptions reported from Europe. Metagonimus yokogawai, the most widespread species, is the main agent responsible for the intestinal disease, metagonimiasis, in Japan and some other East Asian countries. On the basis of the ratio of the size of the ventral and oral suckers, Metagonimus has traditionally been morphologically divided into two groups; however, the genus has not been extensively studied using molecular data. To reveal phylogenetic relationships within Metagonimus based on molecular data, we analyzed six of the seven species present in Asia using samples collected in central Japan. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses of a combined 28S ribosomal DNA (rDNA), internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2), and mitochondrial cox1 gene sequence dataset separated the six species into two well-supported clades. One clade comprised M. yokogawai, M. takahashii, M. miyatai, and M. hakubaensis, whereas the other consisted of M. otsurui and M. katsuradai. Genetic distances calculated from 28S rDNA and ITS2 nucleotide sequences and a comparison of the predicted amino acid sequences of cox1 gene suggested that M. otsurui and M. katsuradai may have diverged recently. None of the four main morphological characters used to delimit species of Metagonimus (i.e., sucker ratio, positions of the uterus and testes, and distribution of vitelline follicles) was consistent with the distribution of species in the molecular tree.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the staff members of the Department of Helminthology, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand for their technical support and permission to use its equipment and facilities. We express our thanks to David Blair, College of Marine and Environmental Science, James Cook University, for his valuable comments on this manuscript. We also thank Paul Adams and Glad Rotaru for language corrections of the manuscript. This research was supported by the Thailand Research Fund (TRF), Thailand (grant number MRG5380075) and the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Thailand.
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The hamsters were handled and maintained according to the guidelines provided in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Japan (approval nos. 2007085 and 2012012).
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Pornruseetairatn, S., Kino, H., Shimazu, T. et al. A molecular phylogeny of Asian species of the genus Metagonimus (Digenea)—small intestinal flukes—based on representative Japanese populations. Parasitol Res 115, 1123–1130 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-015-4843-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-015-4843-y