Morphometric and molecular characterization of Moniezia species in sheep in Mosul city, Iraq

Abstract

The current study examined 100 small intestines collected randomly from sheep slaughtered in the abattoir and butcher’s shops from different Mosul city / Iraq areas of both sexes (55 females, 45 males) and different ages. Moniezia expansa was diagnosed in 9 samples of intestines by studying the morphometric characteristics of these tapeworms, especially the mature segments, in which both the ovaries and vitelline glands appeared in the ring shape on either side of the body segments and the rosette-like shape of the interproglotidial glands. No significant difference was noticed between males and females of sheep in our study, and the infection rate was 10% in sheep less than a year old and older than two years, with no significant difference between the age groups. The results of the molecular analysis by using conventional polymerase chain reaction technique confirmed the diagnosis of these worms, which belong to the genus Moniezia, with a product reaction of 700 base pairs. The sequencing result shows two strains of Moniezia expanza, which isolated from Iraq (Moniezia expansa-Iraqi one and Moniezia expansa-Iraqi 2) were similar to each other had a significant distance to other strains. The study also showed that Moniezia expansa is different from the same species in other countries.