Abstract
The free-living amoebae, Acanthamoeba, can act as opportunistic parasites on a wide range of vertebrates and are becoming a serious threat to human health due to the resistance of their cysts to harsh environmental conditions, disinfectants, some water treatment practices, and their ubiquitous distribution. Subgenus classification based on morphology is being replaced by a classification based on the sequences of the 18S rRNA gene with a total of 18 different genotypes (T1–T18). A new environmental strain of Acanthamoeba isolated from a waste water treatment plant is presented in this study as a candidate for the description of the novel genotype T19 after phylogenetic analysis.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are indebted to Sergio Llorens for his valuable technical assistance and to Brian Crilly for his helpful revision of the manuscript. This work was funded by grant PI12/02725 from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (FISS) and FEDER and by grant USPCEU-PC07-2013 of the Fundación Universitaria San Pablo CEU. Ana Luz Galván was supported in Spain by an overseas fellowship from Colciencias (Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia). Angela Magnet was supported by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia-Spain (FPU grant AP2009-0415).
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Magnet, A., Henriques-Gil, N., Galván-Diaz, A.L. et al. Novel Acanthamoeba 18S rRNA gene sequence type from an environmental isolate. Parasitol Res 113, 2845–2850 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-014-3945-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-014-3945-2