title: First report of Trichomonas tenax infections in the Philippines.
abstract: Recent studies have reported Trichomonas tenax as a cause of pleuropulmonary infections in humans. In this study, sputum and vaginal swab samples were collected from patients suffering from respiratory ailments in Rodriguez, Rizal and sex workers attending the social hygiene clinics in Angeles City in Pampanga, Mandaluyong City and Pasay City in Metro Manila, Philippines, respectively. DNA was extracted from samples and the 18S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced. Phylogenetic trees were constructed using neighbor-joining, maximum-likelihood, maximum parsimony, and Bayesian inference analyses. Results showed that the new primer sets successfully amplified T. tenax from 14 sputum samples and Trichomonas vaginalis from 19 vaginal swab samples. Consequently, all isolates clustered with high bootstrap support and posterior probability values to their respective reference strains in the phylogenetic tree. Thus, the genus Trichomonas formed a highly supported clade with T. vaginalis in the first clade and T. tenax in the second clade. These findings conclude that T. vaginalis is solely present in the genito-urinary tract of females and that T. tenax can be found in the respiratory tract of humans. To our knowledge, this is the first report of detection and identification of T. tenax from sputum samples in the Philippines. However, further studies are still needed to determine the pathogenicity of this organism in humans.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology, College of Science, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines; Molecular Protozoology Laboratory, Natural Sciences Research Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines.
authors.forename: Kris Genelyn B
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Dimasuay
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology, College of Science, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines; Molecular Protozoology Laboratory, Natural Sciences Research Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines. Electronic address: wlrivera@science.upd.edu.ph.
authors.forename: Windell L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Rivera
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010679:Philippines / Q000453:epidemiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D014244:Trichomonas / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D014245:Trichomonas Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000469:parasitology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: 18S rRNA sequences; Philippines; Sputum; Trichomonas tenax