Int J Biol Sci 2012; 8(5):640-649. doi:10.7150/ijbs.4096 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, Hunan Province 410128, China;
2. State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Etiological Biology, Key Laboratory of Veterinary Parasitology of Gansu Province, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, Gansu Province 730046, China;
3. Sichuan Center for Animal Disease Control and Prevention, Chengdu, Sichuan Province 610041, China;
4. College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510642, China;
5. Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China;
6. College of Animal Science and Technology, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, Yunnan Province 650201, China.
Sparganosis, caused by the plerocercoid larvae of members of the genus Spirometra, can cause significant public health problem and considerable economic losses. In the present study, the complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence of Spirometra erinaceieuropaei from China was determined, characterized and compared with that of S. erinaceieuropaei from Japan. The gene arrangement in the mt genome sequences of S. erinaceieuropaei from China and Japan is identical. The identity of the mt genomes was 99.1% between S. erinaceieuropaei from China and Japan, and the complete mtDNA sequence of S. erinaceieuropaei from China is slightly shorter (2 bp) than that from Japan. Phylogenetic analysis of S. erinaceieuropaei with other representative cestodes using two different computational algorithms [Bayesian inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML)] based on concatenated amino acid sequences of 12 protein-coding genes, revealed that S. erinaceieuropaei is closely related to Diphyllobothrium spp., supporting classification based on morphological features. The present study determined the complete mtDNA sequences of S. erinaceieuropaei from China that provides novel genetic markers for studying the population genetics and molecular epidemiology of S. erinaceieuropaei in humans and animals.
Keywords: Spirometra erinaceieuropaei, sparganosis, mitochondrial genome, mitochondrial DNA, phylogenetic analyses.