Abstract
The genetic information of ancient Paragonimus westermani, the oriental lung fluke infecting over 20 million people worldwide, has not been thoroughly investigated thus far. We analysed genetic markers (COI and ITS2) of P. westermani from coprolite specimens (n = 6) obtained from 15th to 18th century Korean mummies. Our results indicated that all P. westermani sequences were generally distinct from the other species of the genus Paragonimus. The sequences were clustered into three groups: Group I for East Asia; Group II for South and Southeast Asia; and Group III for India and Sri Lanka. In this study, we found that ancient P. westermani sequences in Korea belong to Group I, adding invaluable information to the existing knowledge of Paragonimus paleogenetics.
Highlights
Paragonimiasis occurs in definitive hosts after ingestion of infected intermediate hosts.[1]. In general, Paragonimus eggs hatch before entering snails
Researchers have attempted to reveal the genetic characteristics of P. westermani through DNA analysis.[1,8,11,12,13,14,15] Phylogenetic analyses of cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) DNA regions have revealed that P. westermani are clustered into at least two groups (East Asia and South/Southeast Asia), in association with geographically distinct distributions.[1,8,11,12,13] ancient eggs have been detected in archaeological samples, very few parasitological reports regarding paleogenetics of ancient Paragonimus spp. have been published so far
The only report was our previous study on ITS2 DNA sequence of ancient P. westermani eggs obtained from a 17th century Korean mummy.[7]. In that study, the ancient DNA sequence of P. westermani was very similar to that of modern P. westermani reported in East Asia, but was genetically distinct from the P. westermani sequences of Southeast Asia.[7]
Summary
The genetic information of ancient Paragonimus westermani, the oriental lung fluke infecting over 20 million people worldwide, has not been thoroughly investigated far. [11,12,13,16,17] Our paleoparasitological studies have microscopically detected ancient Paragonimus eggs in many more coprolite specimens (n = 6) from the 15th to 18th century Korean mummies.[18,19] In this regard, we attempted to examine multiple genetic markers (COI and ITS2) in newly collected ancient P. westermani eggs in order to obtain more comprehensive information about the evolutionary history of P. westermani. Electrophoresis results were photographed using a Vilber Lourmat ETX-20.M equipped with Biocapt software (Vilber Lourmat, Collégien, France)
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