Genetic Variation of Cyst Isolates from Iraq Based on Mitochondrial COX1 Sequences.

The zoonotic parasite disease of economic and public health relevance is bovine cysticercosis, resulting from the larval stage of . The presented research aims to identify intraspecific variation in isolated from cattle in Iraq's Sulaymaniyah province using the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COX1) gene. Sequence analysis of the COX1 gene revealed that five distinct haplotypes were identified in 37 specimens from Iraq. Four of the five haplotypes may have been identified for the first time in the world. Phylogenetic research revealed that all haplotypes had been clustered in a single clade, with Korean and Iranian isolates sharing a high degree of closeness. In addition, individual haplotypes related to COX1 had a pairwise evolutionary divergence of 0.005- 0.013, whereas the overall evolutionary divergence regarding all five haplotypes ranged between 0.000-0.018. It was concluded that added newly recorded data on genetic variation could have substantial implications for taeniasis epidemiology and control.