Random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis of DNA extracted from Trichuris trichiura (Linnaeus, 1771) eggs and its prospective application to paleoparasitological studies

Abstract

Random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis was applied to DNAs extracted from Trichuris trichiura eggs recovered from human fecal samples. Four out of 6 primers tested displayed 18 distinct and well defined polymorphic patterns, ranging from 650 to 3200 base pairs. These results, upon retrieval and DNA sequencing of some of these bands from agarose gels, might help in establishing T. trichiura specific genetic markers, not available yet, and an important step to design primers to be used in molecular diagnosis approaches.

Paleo-parasitological study on the soils collected from archaeological sites in old district of Seoul City

“…also pose differentiation difficulties. Distinguishing T. trichiura eggs from those of T. suis simply by morphological characteristics, for example, remains controversial, as some T. suis eggs morphologically resemble T. trichiura eggs (Schwartz, 1926;Martinez et al, 2003;Cutillas et al, 2007). Therefore, as was the case for Ascaris, we cannot rule out the possibility that some Trichuris eggs discovered in Yukjo Street might have originated from cattle roaming free there.…”

Amplification and sequencing of Trichuris trichiura ancient DNA extracted from archaeological sediments

“…Though PCR-based analysis enables paleo-parasitologists to perform molecular diagnosis of the parasites in tissues or sediments (Martinez et al, 2003), microscopic examination is still relevant for paleoparasitological diagnosis (Drancourt and Raoult, 2005;Iñ iguez et al, 2003). In case of Trichuris, some pioneering authors also showed the potentiality to differentiate the species based on their morphometry (Ferreira et al, 1991).…”

“…Considering the potential role of molecular approach developed for ancient parasites, it is surprising that PCR analysis of Trichuris spp. have been lacking until now with the only exception being that of Martinez et al (2003), in which random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis was done on DNA extracted from T. trichiura eggs in fecal samples of human patients.…”

Paleoparasitological Studies on Mummies of the Joseon Dynasty, Korea

“…What has really captured the imagination of scientists, even of archaeologists, over the past several decades, however, is DNA analysis [13,14,15]. DNA studies of ancient parasites including Trypanosoma cruzi , Plasmodium sp., Ascaris sp., T. trichiura , Enterobius vermicularis , and Clonorchis sinensis have been numerously and widely reported [13,16,17,18,19,20,21,22].…”