Abstract
Enterocytozoon bieneusi and Blastocystis may cause diarrhea in humans and various animals. However, little information is available regarding the prevalence and genetic diversity of E. bieneusi and Blastocystis in donkeys. To fill this gap, we molecularly assessed E. bieneusi and Blastocystis in fecal samples from donkeys (n = 815) in Shanxi Province, north China. The overall prevalence of E. bieneusi and Blastocystis in donkeys was 8.1% and 0.2%, respectively. Region and age were risk factors associated with E. bieneusi infection in donkeys. Three internal transcribed spacer (ITS) genotypes of E. bieneusi were identified in the current study, including two previously described genotypes (D and Henan-IV) and one novel genotype (named SXD1). Of which, genotype D was found to be the most prevalent. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the three genotypes belonged to group 1, implying a potential of zoonotic transmission. Multilocus sequence typing showed that 19, 15, 13, and 22 types were identified at the loci MS1, MS3, MS4, and MS7, respectively, forming six multilocus genotypes (MLGs) distributed in the genotype D. One Blastocystis subtype (ST33) was identified, which has previously been reported only in horses. This is the first molecular-based description of E. bieneusi and Blastocystis infections in donkeys in Shanxi Province, north China, contributing to a better understanding of transmission dynamics and molecular epidemiological characteristics of the two intestinal protozoa.
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Data availability
The authors declare that data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. The representative sequences obtained in this study have been deposited in GenBank under the accession numbers: OR804086-OR804088 (E. bieneusi ITS sequences), OR813053-OR813080 (E. bieneusi MS1, MS3, MS4, and MS7 nucleotide sequences), and OR866211-OR866212 (Blastocystis SSU rRNA gene sequences).
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Funding
This work was supported by the Shanxi Province Excellent Doctoral Work Award—Scientific Research Project (Grant No. SXBYKY2021019), the Research Fund of Shanxi Province for Introduced High-level Leading Talents (Grant No. RFSXIHLT202101), the Fund for Shanxi “1331 Project” (Grant No. 20211331–13), and the Special Research Fund of Shanxi Agricultural University for High-level Talents (Grant No. 2021XG001).
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W-WG, QL, and X-QZ conceived and designed the experiments. SZ, T-HZ, and TJ performed the experiments, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. NS, S-CX, SL, and XT participated in the implementation of the study. W-WG, QL, and X-QZ critically revised the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Zhang, S., Zhang, TH., Jia, T. et al. Prevalence and genotype/subtype distribution of Enterocytozoon bieneusi and Blastocystis in donkeys in Shanxi Province, north China. Parasitol Res 123, 108 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-024-08128-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-024-08128-x