Abstract
The aim of this study was to characterize the Tunisian Fasciola spp. flukes by morphometric and molecular analyses. Flukes were collected from livers of sheep slaughtered in Sejnane slaughterhouses (Bizerte gouvernorate, Northwest Tunisia) between January and March 2021.
Five morphometric parameters were determined for all the liver flukes, as follows: (i) total body length (BL), (ii) distance between ventral sucker and the tail (VS-T), (iii) distance between oral sucker and ventral sucker (OS-VS), (iv) abdomen diameter (AD), (v) tail diameter (TD) and the body length to width ratio (BL/BW). Molecular identification of the fluke specimens was carried out by polymerase chain reaction, restriction fragment polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) of a 680 bp sequence of the internal transcribes spacer 1 (ITS1) gene and by amplification, sequencing, and phylogenetic analysis of a 500 bp sequence of the ITS2 gene. Morphometric measurements showed that the mean of the total body length of the adult flukes was 21.1 ± 2.7 mm with minimum and maximum lengths of 13 and 31 mm, respectively. The PCR-RFLP analysis revealed a single profile consisting of three bands of approximately 370, 100, and 60 bp. Fasciola sequences described in the present study (GenBank numbers: OQ457027 and OQ457028) showed 99.58–100% identity to Fasciola hepatica. In conclusion, the results of this study show that molecular and phylogenetic analyses confirm the presence of a single species of F. hepatica in the Sejnane region Northwest of Tunisia. However, further studies are needed to identify the occurrence of Fasciola species in other Tunisian regions.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the staff of the slaughterhouse of the Sejnane region (Tunisia) for their support for sampling. The authors would also like to thank the PREPARE4VBD project (European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under grant agreement no. 101000365) for supporting molecular analysis. Thanks also to the Mediterranean and Middle East Universities Network Agreement (MUNA) for collaboration in networking.
Funding
This work was supported by the Laboratoire d’Épidémiologie des Infections Enzootiques des Herbivores en Tunisie: Application à la Lutte (Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique, Tunisia) (LR16AGR01), the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock (CRP Livestock), and the Unit of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases, Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Production, University of Naples Federico II.
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Ines Hammami: investigation, methodology, data analyses, writing—original draft. Lavina Ciuca: methodology, writing—review and editing. Maria Paola Maurelli: methodology, writing—review and editing. Rihab Romdhane: investigation. Limam Sassi: investigation. Mohamed Ridha Rjeibi: methodology. Nadia Farhat: investigation. Alain Kouam Simo: investigation, methodology. Laura Rinaldi: funding acquisition, writing—review and editing. Mourad Rekik: funding acquisition. Mohamed Gharbi: conceptualization, supervision, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing.
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The present study was performed in a certified slaughterhouse under the supervision of an officially certified veterinarian by the Tunisian state.
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Hammami, I., Ciuca, L., Maurelli, M.P. et al. First morphometric and molecular characterization of Fasciola spp. in Northwest Tunisia. Parasitol Res 122, 2467–2476 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-023-07933-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-023-07933-0