No abstract

After decades of being neglected, broad tapeworms now attract growing attention thanks to the increasing number of reports from humans but also thanks to many advancements achieved by application of molecular methods in diagnosis and epidemiological studies. Regarding sparganosis, unfortunately general uniformity of most species, their high intraspecific variability and lack of agreement among researchers has led to confusion about the classification of Spirometra/Sparganum species. For the first time we determined adult, eggs and plerocercoid life cycle stages and the molecular phylogeny of Sparganum proliferum obtained from endangered wild felids ( Panthera onca, Leopardus pardalis, Leopardus guttulus and Herpailurus yagoauroundi ) in one of the largest continuous remnants of worldwide biodiversity, the Atlantic Forest from South America. Our results showed that at least 57% of total species of wild felids in this natural area could act as definitive hosts of Sparganum proliferum . We conclude that the availability of more morphological characteristics are needed in order to secure reliable characterization and diagnosis of sparganosis. The integration of these data with molecular analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences will be useful for species discrimination. 1

Ecological associations between wild felids and parasites from the Taeniidae family are slightly related to predator-prey interactions, where felids act as definitive hosts and their prey, herbivores and/or omnivores, are intermediate hosts in the cycle. In the Atlantic Forest, six neotropical felid species coexist in sympatry, but the ecological parasite-host interactions remain poorly studied. Taenia omissa is a tapeworm associated with cougar (Puma concolor) as the only definitive host and its ungulate prey as intermediate host. The aim of this study was to perform an integrated analysis for the identification of tapeworms from road-killed fauna using both molecular and morphological characteristics. Tapeworms from a cougar, a jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) and two ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) and metacestodes from a red brocket deer (Mazama americana) and a wild guinea pig (Cavia aperea) were analyzed. Taenia omissa individuals were identified in the cougar and in the red brocket deer through morphological analysis of rostellar hooks and molecular analysis of the mitochondrial genetic marker COX1, demonstrating the presence of a complete host-parasite life cycle in the Atlantic Forest region. This new report expands the geographic distribution of T. omissa and shows the southernmost record. In addition, isolates of Taenia genus divergent from those described so far in molecular databases were reported and propose a wild cycle that involves the jaguarundi and agouti as definitive and intermediate hosts, respectively. These results show the complexity of the tapeworm population in the region and the need to study them with both morphological and molecular approaches.