Acta Parasitologica, Vol. 50, No. 3, 2005, 240-243 Seraphima K. Semyenova(1)*, Elena V. Morozova(1), Vasiliy A. Vasilyev(1), Vladimir V. Gorokhov(2), Aleksandr S. Moskvin(2), Sergey O. Movsessyan(3) and Alexey P. Ryskov(1) - Polymorphism of internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS-2) sequences and genetic relationships between Fasciola hepatica and F. gigantica
(1)Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 34/5 Vavilov Str., 119334 Moscow; (2)K.I. Skryabin All-Russian Institute for Helminthology, 28 Bolschaya Tcheryomuschkinskaya Str., 117218 Moscow; (3)Institute of Parasitology, Russian Academy of Sciences,
33 Lenin Avenue, 119071, Moscow; Russia
*Corresponding author: seraphimas@mail.ru
ABSTRACT
Nucleotide sequences of internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS-2) of nuclear DNA were obtained from 58 adult worms Fasciola hepatica and F. gigantica of naturally infected cattle and sheep in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan
and Tajikistan. No variation was observed between 43 liver flukes F. hepatica from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia and Turkmenistan. Only one specimen from Armenia had a single unique transversion C-G (0.3% variation). F. gigantica from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan differed at four nucleotide transitions (1.1% variations). For comparative purpose, the ITS-2 sequences of two species from Europe, Africa, Asia, America, Australia and Oceania were used and evolution history of ITS-2 sequences of Fasciola species was reconstructed with statistical parsimony network (SPN) method. The relationships
between F. hepatica and F. gigantica from different regions were discussed.
KEY WORDS: Fasciola hepatica, F. gigantica, second internal transcribed spacer (ITS-2), genetic relationships