Abstract
Neorickettsia are endosymbiotic bacteria that infect digeneans (Trematoda). These bacteria are of interest worldwide because of their ability to move from the parasite to its host, where they can cause serious diseases of humans and animals. While several disease-forming species of Neorickettsia have been well studied, and numerous Neorickettsia types have been identified in regions such as North America and parts of Asia, records from other locations are sparse. To date, there have been no reports of Neorickettsia from New Zealand. We screened ten species of digeneans infecting seven native gastropod species (both marine and freshwater) found near Dunedin, New Zealand, for the presence of neorickettsial infections. A >1300 bp long section of 16S rRNA belonging to a Neorickettsia bacterium was isolated from opecoelid digeneans of two individuals of the mudflat topshell snail Diloma subrostrata. These sequences represent the first evidence of neorickettsial infection in native New Zealand animals and are also the first Neorickettsia found in digeneans of the family Opecoelidae.
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Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the members of the Evolutionary and Ecological Parasitology Research Group at the University of Otago for assistance with sample collection and digenean identification, and Dr Stephen Greiman for generously providing us with Neorickettsia spp. genomic DNA. This work was funded by a University of Otago Research Grant to RP.
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Lawrence, S.A., Poulin, R. Detection of the bacterial endosymbiont Neorickettsia in a New Zealand digenean. Parasitol Res 115, 4275–4279 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-016-5208-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-016-5208-x