High Genetic Variability of Schistosoma haematobium in Mali and Nigeria |
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| Authors: | Charles Ezeh Mingbo Yin Hongyan Li Ting Zhang Bin Xu Moussa Sacko Zheng Feng Wei Hu |
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| Affiliation: | 1Key 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;2School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China;3Laboratory of Parasitology, Institut National de Recherche en Sante Publique, 1771, Bamako, Mali |
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| Abstract: | 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. |
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| Keywords: | Schistosoma haematobium allelic diversity allelic composition microsatellite Mali Nigeria |
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