Molecular studies on larvae of Pseudoterranova parasite of Trichiurus lepturus Linnaeus, 1758 and Pomatomus saltatrix (Linnaeus, 1766) off Brazilian waters.

Abstract

Pseudoterranova larvae parasitizing cutlassfish Trichiurus lepturus and bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix from Southwest Atlantic coast of Brazil were studied in this work by morphological, ultrastructural and molecular approaches. The genetic analysis were performed for the ITS2 intergenic region specific for Pseudoterranova decipiens, the partial 28S (LSU) of ribosomal DNA and the mtDNA cox-1 region. We obtained results for the 28S region and mtDNA cox-1 that was amplified using the polymerase chain reaction and sequenced to evaluate the phylogenetic relationships between sequences of this study and sequences from the GenBank. The morphological profile indicated that all the nine specimens collected from both fish were L3 larvae of Pseudoterranova sp. The genetic profile confirmed the generic level but due to the absence of similar sequences for adult parasites on GenBank for the regions amplifyied, it was not possible to identify them to the species level. The sequences obtained presented 89% of similarity with Pseudoterranova decipiens (28S sequences) and Contracaecum osculatum B (mtDNA cox-1). The low similarity allied to the fact that the amplification with the specific primer for P. decipiens didn't occur, lead us to conclude that our sequences don't belong to P. decipiens complex.