No abstract

Myxozoans are a group of diverse, spore-forming metazoan microparasites bound to aquatic environments. Sphaerospora dykovae (previously S. renicola) causes renal sphaerosporosis and acute swim bladder inflammation (SBI) in juvenile Cyprinus carpio carpio, in central Europe. A morphologically similar species with comparably low pathogenicity, S. angulata has been described from C. c. carpio, Carassius auratus auratus and Carassius gibelio. To clarify uncertainties and ambiguities in taxon identification in these hosts we decided to re-investigate differences in spore morphology using a statistical approach, in combination with SSU and LSU rDNA sequence analyses. We found that developing spores of S. angulata and S. dykovae cannot be distinguished morphologically and designed a duplex PCR assay for the cryptic species that demonstrated S. dykovae is specific to C. c. carpio, whereas S. angulata infects C. a. auratus and C. gibelio. The molecular identification of myxozoan blood stages in common carp and goldfish, which had previously been ascribed to Sphaerospora spp. showed that approximately 75% of blood stages were from non-sphaerosporid coelozoic species infecting these cyprinids and more than 10% were from an alien species, Myxobilatus gasterostei, developing in sticklebacks. We hereby report non-selective myxozoan host invasion and multi-species infections, whose role in SBI still requires clarification.

Sphaerospora molnari Lom, Dyková, Pavlásková and Grupcheva, 1983 often causes severe infections in the gills and skin of common carp fingerlings Cyprinus carpio carpio in Central Europe. Although most Sphaerospora spp. are coelozoic and affect the excretory system of fish, S. molnari develops mature spores in the epithelia of gill filaments, making it a rare representative of histozoic freshwater species within the genus. On the basis of a partial 18S rDNA sequence assigned as belonging to S. molnari, previous phylogenetic studies located the species within the Myxobolus clade. In the present study, S. molnari isolates from Hungary and the Czech Republic were characterized based on morphology, DNA sequence analysis and phylogenetic comparison. The obtained 3714 bp final consensus 18S rDNA sequence of the parasite showed several, sometimes extremely long inserts in the variable regions of the gene and differed considerably from the one published in GenBank in 2002. In situ hybridization confirmed the validity of the obtained DNA sequence and detected pre-sporogonic blood stages in the interstitium and blood vessels of the kidney. Phylogenetic analysis showed that S. molnari clusters within the Sphaerospora sensu stricto clade with a high support, revealing it as the first known histozoic member of the Sphaerospora subclade comprising parasites of freshwater fish.