Morphological Re-Description and 18 S rDNA Sequence Confirmation of the Pinworm Aspiculuris tetraptera (Nematoda, Heteroxynematidae) Infecting the Laboratory Mice Mus musculus.

Rewaida Abdel-Gaber,Rehab Saleh,Heinz Mehlhorn,Kareem Morsy,Fathy Abdel-Ghaffar,Saleh Al Quraishy

doi:10.21307/jofnem-2018-026

Abstract

Aspiculuris tetraptera is a heteroxynematid nematoda infecting most of the laboratory animals, occasionally mice which represent the mostly used animal for biological, medical, and pharmacological studies. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence of nematode parasites infection in the laboratory mice Mus musculus in Egypt. Morphologically, this oxyurid possessed four distinct cephalic papillae on a cephalic plate, with three small rudimental lips carrying two sessile poorly developed labial papillae and one pair of amphidial pores. Esophagus divided into cylindrical corpus and globular bulb. Distinct cervical alae interrupted at the level of esophago-intestinal junction forming an acute angle. At the caudal end, twelve caudal papillae in male worms while an ovijector apparatus opening and a vulva surrounded by protruded lips in females were observed. The general morphological criteria include this nematode with other Aspiculuris species which were compared in the present study. Molecular characterization based on 18SSU rDNA sequencing performed to confirm the taxonomic position of this species and to documents the morphological data. Sequence alignment detects a percent of identity up to 88.0% with other Heteroxynematidae species. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the present recorded is a putative sister taxon to A. tetraptera recorded in a previous study. The SSU rDNA sequence has been deposited in the GenBank under the accession no. MG019400.

Highlights

Species of A. tetraptera are characterized by their medium or small size, the presence of three lips, absence of buccal capsule, and presence of esophagus with a well-developed single bulb located at its posterior end (Bazzano et al, 2002; Perec-Matysiak et al, 2006; Malsawmtluangi and Tandon, 2009, Li et al, 2016)
Morphological identification requires the use of molecular characteristics for accurate identification and validation; these characteristics are common in nematoda systematics (Mc-Manus and Bowles, 1996; Semenova et al, 1996; Gasser, 2001; Jones et al, 2012; Chaudhary et al, 2016; Curtis et al, 2017)
A total of 28 out of 50 (56.0%) specimens of laboratory mice M. musculus were found to be naturally infected with an oxyurid nematoda

Summary

Introduction

Species of A. tetraptera are characterized by their medium or small size, the presence of three lips, absence of buccal capsule, and presence of esophagus with a well-developed single bulb located at its posterior end (Bazzano et al, 2002; Perec-Matysiak et al, 2006; Malsawmtluangi and Tandon, 2009, Li et al, 2016). Morphological identification requires the use of molecular characteristics for accurate identification and validation; these characteristics are common in nematoda systematics (Mc-Manus and Bowles, 1996; Semenova et al, 1996; Gasser, 2001; Jones et al, 2012; Chaudhary et al, 2016; Curtis et al, 2017). The present study reported the natural prevalence, morphological, and morphometric characteristics, in addition to molecular analysis of ribosomal DNA gene sequences of the recovered oxyurid pinworm infecting the laboratory mouse M. musculus to clarify the taxonomic status and phylogenetic position of this parasite species within Heteroxynematidae

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion