title: Identification of Nematodirus species (Nematoda: Molineidae) from wild ruminants in Italy using ribosomal DNA markers.
abstract: The sequence of the second internal transcribed spacer of ribosomal DNA was determined for four species of Nematodirus (Nematodirus rupicaprae, Nematodirus oiratianus, Nematodirus davtiani alpinus and Nematodirus europaeus) from roe deer or alpine chamois. The second internal transcribed spacer of the four species varied in length from 228 to 236 bp, and the G + C contents ranged from 41 to 44%. While no intraspecific sequence variation was detected among multiple samples representing three of the taxa, sequence differences of 5.9-9.7% were detected among the four species, Nematodirus davtiani alpinus and N. rupicaprae were genetically most similar (94.1%), followed by N. oiratianus, N. europaeus and N. rupicaprae (91.1-91.5%), whereas N. oiratianus was genetically most different from N. davtiani alpinus. The interspecific sequence differences were exploited for the delineation of the four species by PCR-based restriction fragment length polymorphism (using two enzymes) and single-strand conformation polymorphism. The results have implications for diagnosis, epidemiology and for studying the systematics of the Nematodirinae.
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Science, The University of Melbourne, Werribee, Victoria, Australia. r.gasser@vet.unimelb.edu.au
authors.forename: R B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Gasser
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild / Q000469:parasitology; D001483:Base Sequence; D018509:DNA, Helminth / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics*; D003670:Deer / Q000469:parasitology; D007558:Italy; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D018807:Polymorphism, Single-Stranded Conformational; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D012418:Ruminants / Q000469:parasitology*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014251:Trichostrongyloidea / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D014252:Trichostrongyloidiasis / Q000469:parasitology / Q000662:veterinary*
chemical_list: D018509:DNA, Helminth; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal