Department of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases with Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Heinzelova 55, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
Int J Parasitol. 2009 Aug;39(10):1129-36. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpara.2009.02.007. Epub 2009 Feb 26.
An epizootiological survey was conducted to investigate the prevalence of hepatozoonosis in a population of 924 apparently asymptomatic dogs from different regions of Croatia. DNA was isolated from canine blood and screening PCR on the 666 bp fragment of 18S rRNA revealed that 108 (11.8%) of dogs were infected. Positive samples were confirmed by partial sequencing of the 18S rRNA gene. The consensus sequences, derived from various sequence data sets, were compared with sequences of 18S ssrRNA of Hepatozoon spp. available in GenBank. The alignments revealed 106 Hepatozoon canis and two Hepatozoon sp. sequences. Among H. canis isolates, we found a certain amount of heterogeneity, while both Hepatozoon sp. isolates were identical to the Spanish isolate (Accession No. AY600625) from Clethrionomys glareolus. On the basis of eight commonly mutated nucleotide positions in the partial 18S rRNA gene sequence, we divided the H. canis isolates into five groups. The results obtained indicate a higher prevalence and significance of hepatozoonosis in Croatia than previously believed and demonstrate that the organisms belonging to H. canis that infect European dogs are genetically very heterogeneous.
对来自克罗地亚不同地区的 924 只无症状犬进行了一项流行性病学调查，以调查肝血孢子虫病的流行情况。从犬血中分离出 DNA，对 18S rRNA 的 666 bp 片段进行 PCR 筛选显示，有 108 只（11.8%）犬受到感染。阳性样本通过对 18S rRNA 基因的部分测序得到确认。从各种序列数据集得出的共识序列与 GenBank 中可获得的肝血孢子虫属 18S ssrRNA 的序列进行了比较。比对显示，有 106 株犬肝血孢子虫和 2 株肝血孢子虫属序列。在犬肝血孢子虫分离株中，我们发现存在一定程度的异质性，而两种肝血孢子虫属分离株与来自 Clethrionomys glareolus 的西班牙分离株（登录号 AY600625）完全相同。基于 18S rRNA 基因部分序列中 8 个常见突变核苷酸位置，我们将犬肝血孢子虫分离株分为 5 组。研究结果表明，肝血孢子虫病在克罗地亚的流行率和重要性高于以往的认知，并表明感染欧洲犬的肝血孢子虫属生物体在遗传上具有高度的异质性。
