Parasitic nematodes of the genus Syphacia Seurat, 1916 infecting Cricetidae in the British Isles: the enigmatic status of Syphacia nigeriana

Abstract

Oxyurid nematodes (Syphacia spp.) from bank (Myodes glareolus) and field/common (Microtus spp.) voles, from disparate geographical sites in the British Isles, were examined morphologically and genetically. The genetic signatures of 118 new isolates are provided, based primarily on the rDNA internal transcribed spacers (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) region and for representative isolates also on the small subunit 18S rDNA region and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox-1) gene locus. Genetic data on worms recovered from Microtus spp. from the European mainland and from other rodent genera from the Palaearctic, North America and West Africa are also included. We test historical hypotheses indicating that S. nigeriana is a generalist species, infecting a range of different rodent genera. Our results establish that S. nigeriana is a parasite of both bank and field voles in the British Isles. An identical genotype was also recorded from Hubert's multimammate mouse (Mastomys huberti) from Senegal, but Mastomys spp. from West Africa were additionally parasitized by a related, although genetically distinct Syphacia species. We found no evidence for S. petrusewiczi in voles from the British Isles but isolates from Russia and North America were genetically distinct and formed their own separate deep branch in maximum likelihood molecular phylogenetic trees.

Morphological and molecular studies on a nematode parasite, Syphacia obvelata, infecting laboratory mice (Mus musculus) in Saudi Arabia

“…Among 24 species of this genus, Syphacia obvelata and Syphacia muris commonly infect the caecum and colon of rodents (Mahmoud et al 2009;Plachý et al, 2015;Gerwin et al, 2017). The primary discriminating tool among these nematodes was based on morphological examination of male worms which include the presence/absence of gubernaculum, shape and size of spicules, number and form of mamelons and cloacal papillae (Landaeta-Aqueveque et al, 2007;Dewi et al, 2014;Khalil et al, 2014;Abdel-Gaber, 2016;Behnke et al, 2022). Regarding the insufficient criteria to differentiate between pinworms, molecular advanced tools have been recently used to discriminate closely related oxyurid species (Cao et al, 2020;Omer et al, 2020).…”