title: Phylogeny and sequence variability of the Sarcocystis singaporensis Zaman and Colley, (1975) 1976 ssrDNA.
abstract: The coccidium Sarcocystis singaporensis (Apicomplexa: Sarcocystidae) is a cyst-forming parasite with potential as a biological agent for the control of wild populations of rodents in non-native environments. Phylogenetic analysis based on the ssrDNA supports S. singaporensisisolates as a sister species to sarcosporidians transmitted between snakes and rodents but an association with the carnivore-ruminant Sarcocystis spp. could not be rejected by likelihood ratio tests. Four complete and six partial ssrDNA sequences representing this species are monophyletic in any tree reconstruction method; however, they possess very high pairwise distances of up to 0.053. The obtained sequences suggest the probable existence of at least two divergent paralogous ssrDNAs. Moreover, our results support the co-evolution of lsrDNA and ssrDNA in S. singaporensis. The utility of coccidian lsrDNA and ssrDNA for evolutionary studies and their abundance in the primary nucleotide databases is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Parasitology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Ceské Budejovice, Czech Republic. slapeta@wadsworth.org
authors.forename: Jan R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Slapeta
authors.forename: Iveta
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kyselová
authors.forename: Aaron O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Modrý
authors.forename: Julius
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lukes
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics*; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded / Q000032:analysis*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016053:RNA, Protozoan / Q000032:analysis; D012377:Rodentia / Q000469:parasitology; D012522:Sarcocystis / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012911:Snakes / Q000469:parasitology; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded; D016053:RNA, Protozoan