Abstract
Blastocystis, an intestinal anaerobic protist with high genetic diversity, inhabits a variety of hosts worldwide, including rodents. However, there have been few studies on squirrel Blastocystis infections in China to date. Herein, 171 fecal samples from Pallas’s squirrels (Callosciurus erythraeus) sold as pets were collected to investigate the prevalence and genetic characteristics of Blastocystis. A total of 10 Blastocystis-positive samples (10/171, 5.9%) were obtained by PCR amplification and DNA sequencing of the barcode region of the SSU rRNA gene. Blastocystis subtype analysis revealed four known subtypes, namely, ST1, ST3, ST5 and ST6, with ST5 and ST6 being predominant. Phylogenetic analysis was performed to identify each subtype. To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore Blastocystis infection in Pallas’s squirrels, expanding the host range of this parasite. Moreover, multiple zoonotic subtypes were found in Pallas’s squirrels, suggesting that these animals may serve as reservoirs for pathogens of human Blastocystis infections.
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Availability of data and materials
All the sequences obtained in this study are available and have been submitted to GenBank at NCBI.
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This work was supported in part by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (number 2020 M672230).
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Haiju Dong and Xuefeng Yang collected the fecal samples; Xuehan Liu, Yaming Ge and Rongjun Wang carried out the PCR assays and sequence analyses. Xuehan Liu and Longxian Zhang designed the study and drafted the current manuscript.
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Liu, X., Ge, Y., Wang, R. et al. First report of Blastocystis infection in Pallas’s squirrels (Callosciurus erythraeus) in China. Vet Res Commun 45, 441–445 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11259-021-09797-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11259-021-09797-0