Identification of various Biomphalaria alexandrina strains collected from five Egyptian governorates using RAPD and species-specific PCR techniques

A M Mohamed,A H Mohamed,A T Sharaf El-Din,M R Habib

doi:10.4236/ajmb.2011.11003

A M Mohamed, A H Mohamed + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.4236/ajmb.2011.11003

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Abstract

The first generation of Biomphalaria snails collected from five Egyptian governorates (Giza, Fayoum, Kafr El-Sheikh, Ismailia and Damietta) were sub-jected to species-specific PCR assays and the results showed that snails collected from the field were B. alexandrina, and there was no evidence for the pres-ence of B. glabrata. The snails were subjected also to RAPD- PCR technique. The results showed that dif-ferent fingerprints with each B. alexandrina strain were produced with varying numbers of bands rang-ing in size from 123.6 to 796.6 bp depending on the snail strain and the primer used. Many specific bands were obtained with the four primers in each strain. Primer OPA-1 amplified the highest number of spe-cific bands (26 bands) and gave the highest poly-morphism among the primers used (100% polymor-phism). The estimated similarity coefficients among B. alexandrina strains based on the RAPD-PCR pro-files ranged from 0.56 to 0.72. The highest similarity coefficient (0.72) was recorded between the strains of Ismailia and Kafr El-Sheikh, while the lowest coeffi-cient (0.56) was reported between the strains of SPSC and Ismailia.

Highlights

Morphological studies of Biomphalaria species identification have been widely carried out and differentiation between some species may be difficult mainly due to phenotypic similarities, size of collected specimens and inadequate fixation procedures [1]
Glabrata as well as B. alexandrina is living in the field and it appeared that the hybridization may be occurring between the two
According to the results of species-specific polymerase chain reaction assays that sampled both nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, and according to DNA sequence data, they found that all Biomphalaria collected during this survey were B. alexandrina and there was no evidence of the presence of B. glabrata or of hybridization of B

Summary

Introduction

Morphological studies of Biomphalaria species identification have been widely carried out and differentiation between some species may be difficult mainly due to phenotypic similarities, size of collected specimens and inadequate fixation procedures [1]. In addition to variation in snail susceptibility and parasite infectivity, the host species identification constitutes an important issue due to morphological similarities, host snail populations have been sometimes misidentified as refractory, which, do not constitute a host species [2]. Kristensen et al [4] utilized RAPD-PCR to differentiate species and populations of Biomphalaria from Egypt and other countries. They confirmed that in Nile Delta B

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