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Abstract
Hymenolepis nana is a common tapeworm that parasitizes in the small intestine of rodent animals and humans. The present study examined the sequence diversity of three mitochondrial (mt) genes namely NADH dehydrogenase subunits 5 (nad5), small subunit ribosomal RNA (rrnS), and ATPase subunit 6 (atp6) of H. nana from mice in different geographical regions of China. A part of the nad5 (pnad5), complete rrnS and atp6 genes were amplified separately from individual H. nana isolates using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and then sequenced. The sequences of pnad5, rrnS, and atp6 were 710 bp, 704–711 bp, and 516 bp in length, respectively. The A + T contents of the sequences were 70.1–73.5% (pnad5), 70.1–71.7% (rrnS), and 76.6–77.9% (atp6). Sequence variation within H. nana was 0–1.4% for atp6, 0–1.7% for rrnS, and 0–0.7% for pnad5. The inter-specific sequence differences between H. nana and Hymenolepis diminuta were significantly higher, which was 31.6–31.7% (pnad5), 16.1–17.6% (rrnS), and 26.5–27.1% (atp6). Phylogenetic analysis based on the combined three sequences using the maximum parsimony (MP) method supported that H. nana is a species complex or “cryptic” species. These findings demonstrated clearly the usefulness of the three mtDNA sequences for population genetics and systematic studies of H. nana of human and animal health significance.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interests. This work was supported in part by the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of Gansu Province (Grant no. 1210RJIA006), the Open Funds of the State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Etiological Biology, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Grant no. SKLVEB2012KFKT003) and the Scientific and Technological Programs of Guangdong Province (Grant no. 2014A020208099).