Čepička I., Kutišová K., Flegr J. 2002: Molecular polymorphism of Tetratrichomonas gallinarum. Abstrakt, J.Eukaryotic Microbiology, 49, 7A.

ISSN 1066-5234,

IF 1,739
ABSTRACT. Tetratrichomonas gallinarum is a widespread parasite of birds, mainly Galliformes and Anseriformes. This species usually infects caecum, but it was found also in beak, salpinx and different visceral organs. Several strains were also isolated from human mouth and lungs. There were originally described several Tetratrichomonas species from different avian hosts, but on the basis of morphological and infection studies only one species is presently considered to be valid. We performed the phylogenetic analysis with 19 T. gallinarum strains, including two human strains and 17 strains isolated from 8 different avian species. The sequences of 5.8S rRNA with the flanking areas ITS1 and ITS2 (ITS) of these 19 strains were determined and used for construction of the phylogenetic tree by the Neighbor-joining and Maximum parsimony method. The strains formed 5 clusters A-E; sequences in each cluster were identical. Human isolates were placed in clusters A and B. The sequence homology among clusters A, B and C (92.9% - 95.4%) was higher than the sequence homology among four valid Trichomonas species (86% - 89% ). However, the sequence homology of clusters D or E to clusters A, B and C, as well as the sequence homology between clusters D and E was unexpectedly low (78.2% - 91% ). We also sequenced and analyzed the gene for 16S rRNA from one strain of each cluster. Again, the sequence homology between clusters D and E, as well as between cluster D or E and clusters A, B and C, was lower than the sequence homology between two Trichomonas species. Therefore we suggest that our strains of Tetratrichomonas gallinarum could represent at least three cryptic species.