Molecular characteristics of Cryptosporidium scrofarum in pig farms of the Vologda region of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The purpose of these studies was to identify, identify, analyze and study the distribution of Cryptosporidium scrofarum in pigs in the farms of the Vologda Region of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation.For the first time in the Russian Federation, using the example of the Vologda Oblast of the Northwestern Federal District in pig farms of various types using the latest molecular genetic methods, namely using high-throughput sequencing of amplicon libraries of fragments of the 18S rRNA gene obtained because of nested PCR, we have established the infection of C. scrofarum in all age groups of examined animals. The contamination of animals kept in pig farms was 34%, in farms - 32.4%. Animals that are fattened at the age of 13-24 weeks are most susceptible to infection.Analysis of ASV taxonomic affiliation using phylogenetic analysis, supplemented by analysis using the blastn algorithm in the GenBank database, showed that a total of 10 ASV types (amplicon sequence variant) are present in all tested samples, which have high similarity to sequences deposited in GenBank as fragments of the 18S p gene Cryptosporidium scrofarum RNA. It has been established that the types of ASV1 and ASV2 detected in various geographical regions of the world from Portugal and Great Britain to China, India and Australia are identified in all examined farms, although in significantly different quantities. The remaining ASVs are present in much smaller numbers and do not repeat from farm to farm. These sequences probably belong to local populations of subspecies Cryptosporidium scrofarum. It is interesting to find a unique sequence of the genus Cryptosporidium of type ASV8, which can later be described as a new species.