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MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF MICROSPORIDIA INDICATES THAT FUR-BEARING WILD MAMMALS CAN BE A SOURCE OF HUMAN PATHOGENIC ENTEROCYTOZOON BIENEUSI
Citation:
Sulaiman, I. M., R. Fayer, A. A. Lal, J. Trout, F W. Schaefer III, AND L. Xiao. MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF MICROSPORIDIA INDICATES THAT FUR-BEARING WILD MAMMALS CAN BE A SOURCE OF HUMAN PATHOGENIC ENTEROCYTOZOON BIENEUSI. JOURNAL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES 69(8):4495-4501, (2003).
Impact/Purpose:
1) Refine new, practical methods for the detection of CCL-related and emerging waterborne human protozoa.
2) Perform field tests of devices or methods that have been developed under this task.
3) Evaluate these methods or devices in a variety of water matrices and parasite concentrations.
This work in this task supports CCL2 and 3 and is expected to be completed by 9/07.
Description:
Over 13 months, 465 beavers, foxes, muskrats, otters, and raccoons were trapped in four counties in eastern Maryland and examined by molecular methods for microsporidia. A two-step nested PCR protocol was developed to amplify a 392 bp fragment of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the rRNA gene of Enterocytozoon bieneusi, using primers complementary to the conserved regions of published E. bieneusi nucleotide sequences. Fifty-nine PCR positive samples were sequenced. Multiple alignments of these sequences identified 17 genotypes of E. bieneusi (WL1-WL17), of these 15 E. bieneusi genotypes have not been reported before. Most of the E. bieneusi genotypes were found in multiple species of wildlife and belonged to a major group consisting of all the previously described E. bieneusi genotypes from human and domestic animals. Some of the isolates from muskrats and raccoons formed two distinct groups. Results of this study indicate that fur-bearing mammals, especially those closely associated with surface water can be a potential source of human-pathogenic E. bieneusi.