Molecular identification of cercaria Fasciola gigantica in lymnaeid snails in Kulon Progo, Yogyakarta.

Lymnaeid snails play an essential role in transmitting fasciolosis as intermediate hosts. Therefore, this study aims to use the molecular method to identify liver fluke in lymnaeid snails. A total of 320 lymnaeid snails were collected from a rice field. The samples were dissected to collect cercaria and identified using polymerase chain reaction. Furthermore, the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) was used as the target gene to identify the species of cercaria. The result showed that 3.75% (12/320) of the snails were infected by Fasciola gigantica, while the phylogenetic tree based on ITS2 showed that the cercaria in this study was monophyletic and similar to species from several countries in Southeast Asia, including China. Furthermore, the haplotype network showed that all four cercaria samples were similar with sequences from several countries. This study suggests that the F. gigantica cercaria isolated from lymnaeid snails in Kulon Progo, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, has a sequence similar to that of other species in Southeast Asian countries, although no hybrid type was detected in these sequences. This is the first report on the molecular identification of cercaria F. gigantica isolated from lymnaeid snails in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.