Molecular Identification of Protozoan Sarcocystis in Different Types of Water Bodies in Lithuania

Abstract

Representatives of the genus Sarcocystis are unicellular parasites having a two-host life cycle and infecting mammals, birds, and reptiles. Until now, Sarcocystis spp. have been mainly investigated in definitive and intermediate hosts. Only a few studies have been conducted on the detection of Sarcocystis parasites in water samples. The aim of this research was to examine whether the prevalence of Sarcocystis spp. parasitizing farm animals varies in different types of water bodies. Water samples (n = 150) were collected from the entire territory of Lithuania, dividing water bodies into five groups (lakes, rivers, ponds/canals, swamps, and the inshore zone of the territorial Baltic Sea area). One-liter samples were filtered and subsequently analyzed using nested PCR. At least one of the analyzed Sarcocystis spp. (S. arieticanis, S. bertrami, S. bovifelis, S. capracanis, S. cruzi, S. hirsuta, S. miescheriana, and S. tenella) was determined in all examined samples from water bodies. No significant difference in Sarcocystis spp. prevalence between different types of water sources was detected. Our research proved that selecting appropriate primers is important for the accurate identification of parasites in samples collected from water bodies.

The Distribution of Sarcocsytis Species Described by Ungulates-Canids Life Cycle in Intestines of Small Predators of the Family Mustelidae

“…The molecular examination of environmental water samples collected throughout Lithuania indicated that S. capracanis is relatively common as compared to other Sarcocystis spp. using farm animals as their intermediate hosts [11,51]. Thus, previous morphological, and molecular data showed that S. arieticanis, S. bertrami and S. capracanis are frequently occurring in Lithuania and this study indicates mustelids to be important predators for the distribution of these species.…”

“…We also searched for S. miescheriana using V2mie5/V2mie6 primer pair (Table 1), which have been shown to be appropriate for the identi cation of this Sarcocystis species [11]. However, S. miescheriana was not detected among tested mustelid samples during the present investigation.…”

“…In Lithuania, wild equids are not present and the abundance of wild populations of small ruminants is too low [50] for them to contribute to the maintenance of S. arieticanis and S. capracanis [51]. So according to the current knowledge, sheep, horse, and goat are the only signi cant intermediate hosts of S. arieticanis, S. bertrami and S. capracanis in Lithuania [11,51]. Previous morphological examination of oesophagus, diaphragm, heart, neck, jaw, and back muscles of 61 sheep showed 100 % prevalence in each type of muscle and the highest Sarcocystis spp.…”

“…Research on Sarcocystis spp. focuses mainly on intermediate hosts and are poorly developed in de nitive hosts [1,9,10] or in the environment [11].…”

Detection of Three Sarcocystis Species (Apicomplexa) in Blood Samples of the Bank Vole and Yellow-Necked Mouse from Lithuania

“…To date, Sarcocystis parasites were mainly examined in animal carcasses by the aforementioned methods [ 23 ]. Sarcocystis species identification in blood would allow the detection of the parasite in living organisms.…”