< Terug naar vorige pagina

Publicatie

Detecting hybridization in African schistosome species: does

Tijdschriftbijdrage - Tijdschriftartikel

SUMMARY Hybrid parasites may have an increased transmission potential and higher virulence compared to their parental species. Consequently, hybrid detection is critical for disease control. Previous crossing experiments showed that hybrid schisto-some eggs have distinct morphotypes. We therefore compared the performance of egg morphology with molecular markers with regard to detecting hybridization in schistosomes. We studied the morphology of 303 terminal-spined eggs, origin-ating from 19 individuals inhabiting a hybrid zone with natural crosses between the human parasite Schistosoma haema-tobium and the livestock parasite Schistosoma bovis in Senegal. The egg sizes showed a high variability and ranged between 92·4 and 176·4 µm in length and between 35·7 and 93·0 µm in width. No distinct morphotypes were found and all eggs resembled, to varying extent, the typical S. haematobium egg type. However, molecular analyses on the same eggs clearly showed the presence of two distinct partial mitochondrial cox1 profiles, namely S. bovis and S. haematobium, and only a single nuclear ITS rDNA profile (S. haematobium). Therefore, in these particular crosses, egg morphology appears not a good indicator of hybrid ancestry. We conclude by discussing strengths
Tijdschrift: Parasitology
ISSN: 0031-1820
Volume: 144
Pagina's: 954 - 964
Jaar van publicatie:2017