Development of polymorphic EST microsatellite markers for the sand fly, Phlebotomus papatasi (Diptera: Psychodidae)

Omar Hamarsheh,Mostafa Ramadhan Dokhan,Mary Ann Mcdowell,Mohamed Amin Kenawy,Ziad Abdeen,Andreas Krüger,Kaouther Jaouadi,Ahmad Amro,Mohammad Reza Yaghoobi-Ershadi,Mehmet Karakuş,Kifaya Azmi

doi:10.1186/s13071-018-2770-3

Abstract

BackgroundPhlebotomus papatasi is a widely distributed sand fly species in different tropical and sub-tropical regions including the Middle East and North Africa. It is considered an important vector that transmits Leishmania major parasites, the causative agents of cutaneous leishmaniasis. The development of microsatellite markers for this sand fly vector is of high interest to understand its population structure and to monitor its geographic dispersal.ResultsFourteen polymorphic microsatellite markers were developed with simple di-, tri- and tetra-nucleotide repeats. The F statistics calculated for the 14 markers revealed high genetic diversity; expected heterozygosity (He) ranged from 0.407 to 0.767, while observed heterozygosity (Ho) was lower and ranged from 0.083 to 0.514. The number of alleles sampled fall in the range of 9–29. Three out of 14 markers deviated from Hardy-Weinberg expectations, no significant linkage disequilibrium was detected and high values for inbreeding coefficient (FIS) were likely due to inbreeding.ConclusionsThe development of these functional microsatellites enable a high resolution of P. papatasi populations. It opens a path for researchers to perform multi locus-based population genetic structure analyses, and comparative mapping, a part of the efforts to uncover the population dynamics of this vector, which is an important global strategy for understanding the epidemiology and control of leishmaniasis.

Highlights

Phlebotomus papatasi is a widely distributed sand fly species in different tropical and sub-tropical regions including the Middle East and North Africa
In this study we describe the identification of a new panel of 14 polymorphic microsatellites based on our previously mined P. papatasi expressed sequence tags (EST) simple sequence repeats [16]
A total of 14 microsatellite markers were found polymorphic when tested on P. papatasi flies from different countries (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Phlebotomus papatasi is a widely distributed sand fly species in different tropical and sub-tropical regions including the Middle East and North Africa. It is considered an important vector that transmits Leishmania major parasites, the causative agents of cutaneous leishmaniasis. The development of microsatellite markers for this sand fly vector is of high interest to understand its population structure and to monitor its geographic dispersal. Phlebotomus papatasi sand flies are vectors of Leishmania major parasites: the causative agents of cutaneous leishmaniasis in the Middle East and North Africa. Like most other sand flies, P. papatasi has received little attention by population geneticists; Due to high polymorphism information content and fast mutation rate, microsatellites have been used with success in the past for population analysis of various insects and sand flies including P. papatasi [13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]. High mutation rates and simple Mendelian inheritance of these loci make them appropriate for investigations on population dynamics, breeding patterns and phylogeny [22, 23].

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