High genetic variability of Schistosoma haematobium in Mali and Nigeria.
Schistosoma haematobium is one of the most prevalent parasitic flatworms, infecting over 112 million people in Africa. However, little is known about the genetic diversity of natural S. haematobium populations from the human host because of the inaccessible location of adult worms in the host. We used 4 microsatellite loci to genotype individually pooled S. haematobium eggs directly from each patient sampled at 4 endemic locations in Africa. We found that the average allele number of individuals from Mali was significantly higher than that from Nigeria. In addition, no significant difference in allelic composition was detected among the populations within Nigeria; however, the allelic composition was significantly different between Mali and Nigeria populations. This study demonstrated a high level of genetic variability of S. haematobium in the populations from Mali and Nigeria, the 2 major African endemic countries, suggesting that geographical population differentiation may occur in the regions.
Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology, Ministry of Public Health, National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200025, China.
Charles
C
Ezeh
School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Mingbo
M
Yin
School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Hongyan
H
Li
Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology, Ministry of Public Health, National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200025, China.
Ting
T
Zhang
Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology, Ministry of Public Health, National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200025, China.
Bin
B
Xu
Laboratory of Parasitology, Institut National de Recherche en Sante Publique, 1771, Bamako, Mali.
Moussa
M
Sacko
Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology, Ministry of Public Health, National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200025, China.
Zheng
Z
Feng
Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology, Ministry of Public Health, National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200025, China ; School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Wei
W
Hu
D000293:Adolescent; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008302:Mali; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D009549:Nigeria; D012548:Schistosoma haematobium / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D012553:Schistosomiasis haematobia / Q000469:parasitology*
Mali; Nigeria; Schistosoma haematobium; allelic composition; allelic diversity; microsatellite