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Discovery of New Intracellular Pathogens by Amoebal Coculture and Amoebal Enrichment Approaches
Published on: October 27, 2013
Multiple strains of the parasitic dinoflagellate Amoebophrya exist in Chesapeake Bay
John H Gunderson1, Shinu A John, W Chanson Boman
1Department of Biology, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee 38505, USA. jgunderson@tntech.edu
Abstract:
Small subunit rRNA sequences were amplified from Amoebophrya strains infecting Karlodinium micrum, Gymnodinium instriatum and an unidentified Scrippsiella species in Chesapeake Bay. The alignable parts of the sequences differed from each other and from the previously reported rRNA sequence of the Amoebophrya strain infecting Akashiwo sanguinea in Chesapeake Bay by 4 to 10%. This is a greater degree of difference than sometimes found between sequences from separate genera of free-living dinoflagellates. These sequence differences indicate that the Amoebophrya strains parasitizing dinoflagellates in Chesapeake Bay do not all belong to the same species. In spite of their relative dissimilarity, the sequences do group together into a single clade with high bootstrap support in phylogenetic trees constructed from the sequences.
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