DNA Barcoding of Argyrops filamentosus (Perciformes: Sparidae) Based on Mitochondrial COI Gene and Histopathological Evaluation of Gills Infected by Monogeneans

Abstract

Background: Sparidae is a fish family that belongs to the order Perciformes and is commonly known as sea breams and porgies. Many species are included in this family and divided into 71 genera that could be barcoded using mitochondrial DNA genes. These fish are vulnerable to different parasitic taxa that affect fish status. The present study is aimed to confirm the molecular status of Argyrops filamentosus fish via the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase (COI) gene and to study the pathological changes of gills infested by monogenean parasites. Methods: Thirty Argyrops filamentosus fish were collected from Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and identified molecularly via the mtCOI gene. Also, gills were isolated and examined microscopically for presence of monogeneans. Histopathological impacts of monogeneans on fish gills were studied in comparison to the gills of non-infected fish. Result: The DNA of fish species was barcoded and showed highly stringent criteria with the previously Argyrops filamentosus sequence data. The obtained host DNA sequences were deposited in NCBI database under accession number OP975758.1. Examination of the investigated fish gills revealed the presence of three monogenean species Protolamellodiscus senilobatus Kritsky, Jiménez-Ruiz and Sey, 2000, Acleotrema maculatus Morsy, El-Fayoumi and Fahmy (2014) and Haliotrema susanae Soo, 2019. Monogenean parasites penetrated deeply with their haptor to the gill lamella and caused damage and degeneration of epithelial cells leading to the formation of a cup-shaped depression. Therefore, the mtDNA gene has the ability for host identification and heavy monogeneans infections lead to severe damage to fish gills.

Morphological and genetic identification of the gill monogenean parasite (Diclidophora merlangi) that infects Twobar Seabream Fish (Acanthopagrus bifasciatus) in the Arabian Gulf, Saudi Arabia

“…Various target regions, such as large subunit ribosomal RNA (28S rRNA) and mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI), have been used to differentiate monogenean species ( Catalanoet et al ., 2010 ; Oliva et al ., 2014 ; Mendoza-Franco et al ., 2018 ; Víllora-Montero et al ., 2020 ; Al-Nabati et al ., 2021 ; Alghamdi et al ., 2023 ; Abdel-Gaber et al ., 2023 ). Acanthopagrus (Perciformes, Sparidae) is now a distinct genus with 20 accepted species ( Pombo-Ayora et al ., 2022 ).…”

“…However, due to their morphological resemblance, several Acanthopagrus species are classified as cryptic taxa ( Zhou et al ., 2011 ; Wu et al ., 2018 ). The COI gene is a standard molecular marker for fish DNA bar-coding ( Prioli Sônia et al ., 2002 ; Ward et al ., 2005 ; Saitoh et al ., 2006 ; Zhang, 2011 ; Tan et al ., 2012 ; Abbas et al ., 2017 ; Wang et al ., 2018 ) and has been successfully used for Sparidae barcoding ( Ahmed et al ., 2021 ; Abdel-Gaber et al ., 2023 ; Nuryanto et al ., 2023 ).…”

“…Some studies have been conducted on monogenean parasites infecting marine fish species in Saudi Arabia to date ( Bayoumy et al ., 2012 ; Mohamed et al ., 2015 ; Bakhraibah, 2018 ; Dajem et al ., 2019 ; Al-Nabati et al ., 2021 ; Morsy et al ., 2021 ; Abdel-Gaber et al ., 2023 , Alshehri et al ., 2023 ; Alghamdi et al ., 2022 ). The purpose of this study to investigate the natural occurrence of monogenean parasites in twobar seabream ( Acanthopagrus bifasciatus ) from the Arabian Gulf (Saudi Arabia), as well as to describe their morphology and phylogenetic relationships.…”