Molecular differentiation of three canine and feline hookworms in South China through HRM analysis

To investigate the prevalence of canine and feline hookworms in South China, and to assess the risk of zoonotic hookworms to humans, one pair of primers (HRM-F/HRM-R) was designed to establish a high-resolution melting (HRM) method based on internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS-1) rDNA for the detection of Ancylostoma ceylanicum, A. caninum and A. tubaeforme infection. The results showed that the HRM for the three hookworms produced different melting-curve profiles, where melting temperature (Tm) values were 84.50°C for A. ceylanicum, 82.25°C for A. caninum and 81.73°C for A. tubaeforme, respectively. The reproducibility of intra- and inter-assay melting curves was almost perfect. The lowest concentration detected was about 5.69 ×10-4 g/μl. The HRM detection results from 18 canine and feline hookworm samples were in complete accordance with their sequencing results. The HRM method was more sensitive than the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique in the detection of 98 clinical samples. It is concluded that the HRM method can differentiate between A. ceylanicum, A. caninum, A. tubaeforme and their mixed infections, which may provide important technical support for the zoonotic risk assessment and molecular epidemiological survey of canine and feline hookworms.