An Unexpected Tenant: Contamination in a Physeter Catodon (Physeteridae, Artiodactyla) Genome Indicates Undescribed Species of Sarcocystis Lankester, 1882 (Sarcocystidae, Eucoccidiorida) in the Marine Environment

Overview

Journal Folia Parasitol (Praha)

Specialty Parasitology

Date 2022 Feb 11

PMID 35145047

Authors

Joaquim Filipe Faria

David James Harris

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Data mining animal of genomes has been used before to identify endoparasites, and may be a particularly useful tool to surpass some difficulties faced by studies in the marine environment. We detected a species of Sarcocystis Lankester, 1882, contamination in the sperm whale (Physeter catodon Linnaeus) reference genome available in the GenBank database. We identified and extracted multiple gene fragments and placed the sequences in a phylogenetic framework. Our results indicate that the sequences of Sarcocystis sp. found in the genome do not correspond to any currently described species, despite a few other similar sequences having been identified in fur seals (Pinnipedia) and another sperm whale. Including data from previous studies, we suggest there is enough evidence to support the occurrence of at least four species of Sarcocystis in marine mammals. We also demonstrate that the term "S. canis-like" has been used for samples not closely related to Sarcocystis canis Dubey et Speer, 1991.

Citing Articles

A Large-Scale Study into Protist-Animal Interactions Based on Public Genomic Data Using DNA Barcodes.

Xie J, Tan B, Zhang Y Animals (Basel). 2023; 13(14).

PMID: 37508021 PMC: 10376638. DOI: 10.3390/ani13142243.

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