Symbionts of invasive and native crabs, in Argentina: The most recently invaded area on the Southwestern Atlantic coastline

Emerging Diseases and Epizootics in Crabs Under Cultivation

“…There is a plethora of reports of diseases in shore crabs both in their native (Stentiford and Feist, 2005;Edwards et al, 2019;Davies et al, 2020a,b) and non-native (Goddard et al, 2005;Bojko et al, 2017Bojko et al, , 2018Blakeslee et al, 2020;Frizzera et al, 2021) ranges (Figure 1). Disease causing agents include viruses (Bojko et al, 2019;Bateman et al, 2021), bacteria (Spindler-Barth, 1976Eddy et al, 2007), fungi (Davies et al, 2020a), microsporidians (Bojko et al, 2017), dinoflagellates (Chatton and Poisson, 1931;Stentiford and Feist, 2005;Hamilton et al, 2007Hamilton et al, , 2009Davies et al, 2019), haplosporidians (Davies et al, 2020b), nematodes (Stentiford and Feist, 2005), acanthocephalans (Zetlmeisl et al, 2011), digeneans (Stentiford and Feist, 2005;Zetlmeisl et al, 2011;Blakeslee et al, 2015Blakeslee et al, , 2020, and parasitic barnacles, Sacculina carcini (Mouritsen and Jensen, 2006;Powell and Rowley, 2008;Lützen et al, 2018;Mouritsen et al, 2018;Rowley et al, 2020).…”

Comparative genomics for Agmasoma sp. (Microsporidia) parasitising invasive Carcinus aestuarii and Carcinus maenas in Argentina

“…maenas, following the wealth of genomic data available for each. This study follows on from Frizzera et al (2021), where this parasite was first histologically identified.…”

“…Carcinus maenas is associated with ~95 symbionts (Bojko et al, 2021), many of which are parasitic, and includes 5 microsporidian species: Parahepatospora carcini (Bojko et al, 2017); Nadelspora canceri (Stentiford et al, 2013); Abelspora portucalensis (Azevedo, 1987); Ameson pulvis (Sprague and Couch, 1971); and Thelohania maenadis (Sprague and Couch, 1971). A relative of C. maenas, Carcinus aestuarii is also a global invader associated with microsporidian parasites (T. maenadis; Ormieresia carcini) (Vivares et al, 1977) and has most recently been found to carry a microsporidian parasite to Argentina, with genetic similarity to the genus Agmasoma (Enterocytozoonida) (Frizzera et al, 2021). It is important to mention that microsporidians are obligate parasites that can affect host health, representing a potential danger for other crustaceans that may have important economic or ecological value in Argentina.…”

“…The Enterocytozoonida currently holds 5 species with draft genomic data: Hepatospora eriocheir (variants from Cancer pagurus and Eriocheir sinensis) (accession: GCA_002087885; size: 4.70254 Mb; proteins: 2871; BUSCO: 44.0 %); Enterospora canceri (accession: GCA_002087915; size: 3.09538 Mb; proteins: 2169; BUSCO: 53.5 %); Enterocytozoon bieneusi (accession: GCA_000209485; size: 3.86074 Mb; proteins: 3632; BUSCO: 54.5 %); Enterocytozoon hepatopenaei (accession: GCA_002081675; size: 3.03974 Mb; proteins: 2536; BUSCO: 56.7 %); and Vittaforma corneae (accession: NZ_AEYK00000000; size: 3.21352 Mb; proteins: 2239; BUSCO: 75 %) (Mittleider et al, 2002;Akiyoshi et al, 2009;Wiredu Boakye et al, 2017). In this study we provide a genome draft for the Agmasoma parasite infecting invasive C. aestuarii and C. maenas in Argentina (Frizzera et al, 2021), and we sequence isolates from both hosts to conduct a comparison and determine if it is the same species of parasite infecting each host.…”

“…A single C. aestuarii and a single C. maenas collected by hand from the intertidal zone around Puerto Madryn (45 • 50 ′ S, 64 • 54 ′ W) exhibited microsporidian infections described by Frizzera et al (2021), and were dissected to obtain infected tissues in 96 % ethanol for DNA extraction. DNA was extracted from hepatopancreas, muscle and gill tissue from both animals using a 'Wizard® genomic DNA extraction kit' (Promega).…”