Genetic Diversity of Dioctophyma renale in Northeast Argentina and Southern Brazil.

FLORENCIA FACELLI FERNANDEZ; LUCAS L. MALDONADO; MARTÍN KOWALEWSKI; GISELA R. FRANCHINI; LUCAS F. ARCE; MARCOS J. BUTTI; MARIA BELEN NATALINI; FLORENCIA ZILLI; LAURA KAMENETZKY; A. NAHILI GIORELLO; JUAN PABLO ARRABAL; DANIELA PEDRASSANI; PABLO M. BELDOMENICO

Reunión Virtual

Congreso; Molecular Parasitology Meeting XXXI.; 2020

The dynamics of pathogens between domestic and wild fauna remain poorly understood. Numerous conservation problems emerge on that border.Concerning this matter, genomes are used to design of new molecular tools for the sensitive detection of helminths that cause risk diseases from domestic towild carnivores. Dioctophyma renale is a parasitic nematode that infects the kidney of mammals (mainly Order Carnivora). It can grow and exceed the meter,destroying the kidney. Therefore, its infection is strongly debilitating and even fatal. Numerous cases in domestic dogs were observed on the Argentine coast(prevalence above 30%). There are even reports of infection in wild carnivores including maned wolf (Crysocyon brachyurus); making this parasite a possiblethreat to the conservation of some endangered species.From genome Project (developed by our laboratory), a mitochondrial genome of D. renale was assembled and three molecular markers of differentsizes from cytochrome oxidase I (COX1) gene were designed. Forty-six adults of Dioctophyma renale were collected from interventions in veterinary clinics andfrom necropsies of wild fauna in different locations in northeastern Argentina and southern Brazil. DNA was extracted from each sample and those markers wereamplified by PCR. The amplified products were typed by SNPs analysis and phylogenetically analyzed with sequences available in the GenBank, which came fromJapan, Peru, Canada and Iran. Ten local genetic variants of South America were observed, without geographic differentiation among the localities of Argentina,Peru and Brasil, but a great separation with regard to the sequences of other regions of the world. Nor was any structuring by host species observed. This couldsuggest a high circulation of the parasite among South American localities and among the different host species. Phylogenies constructed with the differentmarkers are consistent with each other. Molecular evidence suggests that Dioctophyma renale populations were in South America long enough to develop localgenetic variants. They could have come from the north of the continent and dispersed between Brazil and Argentina on more than one occasion. Finally, thesame variants can infect and be transmitted between domestic and wild mammals in the studied region.