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Mass Isolation and In Vitro Cultivation of Intramolluscan Stages of the Human Blood Fluke Schistosoma Mansoni
Published on: January 14, 2018
Schistosomes in the north: a unique finding from a prosobranch snail using molecular tools
Jitka Asma Aldhoun1, Anna Faltýnková, Anssi Karvonen
1Charles University in Prague, Department of Parasitology, Vinicná 7, 128 44 Prague 2, Czech Republic. atacama@centrum.cz
Abstract:
Samples of schistosome cercariae from three different snail species (Lymnaea stagnalis, Radix auricularia and Valvata (Tropidina) macrostoma) collected from lakes in Central Finland were analyzed using molecular techniques. Based on sequences of ITS region of rDNA, the parasite isolates from L. stagnalis and R. auricularia belong to Trichobilharzia szidati and T. franki, respectively. This confirms a wide distribution of these two species in Europe. On the other hand, the isolates from V. macrostoma represent a unique finding--they belong to yet unknown schistosome species falling into the bird schistosome clade. Therefore, identification of natural final hosts and morphological characterization of particular developmental stages need to be performed in the future.
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