Genetically variant populations of Paragonimus proliferus Hsia & Chen, 1964 from central Vietnam

Among about 50 nominal Paragonimus species, Paragonimus proliferus is rather a rare species, found only in Yunnan province, China, until our recent discovery of this species in Lai Chau province, northern Vietnam close to Yunnan, China. Here we add Quang Binh province, central Vietnam as a new endemic area of P. proliferus. Large excysted metacercariae found in mountainous crabs, Potamiscus tannanti, were morphologically identified as P. proliferus, which was confirmed further by molecular analyses. Second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) sequences of the P. proliferus population in Quang Binh province were completely (100%) identical with those of P. proliferus populations in Lai Chau province, northern Vietnam and Yunnan province, China. However, cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) gene sequences of Quang Binh population were significantly different (5.6%) from that of previously reported northern Vietnam and Yunnan, China populations. A phylogenetic tree revealed that all CO1 sequences of P. proliferus Quang Binh population formed a distinct group, which was clustered with northern Vietnam and Yunnan, China populations with the bootstrap value of 75%. This is the first record of the genetically variant population of P. proliferus, distribution of which is geographically remote from the previously reported endemic areas in the border between northern Vietnam and Yunnan, China, suggesting that P. proliferus may be much more widely distributed in the Indochina peninsula (or South-East Asia) than expected.