BACKGROUND: Representatives of the trematode family Fasciolidae are responsible for major socio-economic losses worldwide. Fascioloides magna is an important pathogenic liver fluke of wild and domestic ungulates. To date, only a limited number of studies concerning the molecular biology of F. magna exist. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to determine the complete mitochondrial (mt) genome sequence of F. magna, and assess the phylogenetic relationships of this fluke with other trematodes based on the mtDNA dataset. FINDINGS: The complete F. magna mt genome sequence is 14,047 bp. The gene content and arrangement of the F. magna mt genome is similar to those of Fasciola spp., except that trnE is located between trnG and the only non-coding region in F. magna mt genome. Phylogenetic relationships of F. magna with selected trematodes using Bayesian inference (BI) was reconstructed based on the concatenated amino acid sequences for 12 protein-coding genes, which confirmed that the genus Fascioloides is closely related to the genus Fasciola; the intergeneric differences of amino acid composition between the genera Fascioloides and Fasciola ranged 17.97-18.24 %. CONCLUSIONS: The determination of F. magna mt genome sequence provides a valuable resource for further investigations of the phylogeny of the family Fasciolidae and other trematodes, and represents a useful platform for designing appropriate molecular markers.

College of Veterinary Medicine Hunan Agricultural University Changsha Hunan Province 410128 PR China

Department of Botany and Zoology Faculty of Science Masaryk University Kotlářská 2 611 37 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Parasitology Faculty of Science Charles University Viničná 7 Prague 2 128 44 Czech Republic

State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Etiological Biology Key Laboratory of Veterinary Parasitology of Gansu Province Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Lanzhou Gansu Province 730046 PR China

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Bassi R. Sulla cachessia ittero-vermicosa, o marciaia dei Cervi, causata dal Distomum magnum. Medic Vet. 1875;4:497–515.

Ward HB. On the structure and classification of North American parasitic worms. J Parasitol. 1917;4:1–12. doi: 10.2307/3271103. DOI

Králová Hromadová I, Bazsalovicsová E, Štefka J, Špakulová M, Vávrová S, Szemes T, et al. Multiple origins of European populations of the giant liver fluke Fascioloides magna (Trematoda: Fasciolidae), a liver parasite of ruminants. Int J Parasitol. 2011;41:373–383. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpara.2010.10.010. PubMed DOI

Pybus M. Survey of hepatic and pulmonary helminths of wild cervids in Alberta Canada. J Wildlife Dis. 1990;26:453–459. doi: 10.7589/0090-3558-26.4.453. PubMed DOI

Bazsalovicsová E, Králová Hromadová I, Minárik G, Bokorová S, Pybus M. Genetic interrelationships of North American populations of giant liver fluke Fascioloides magna. Parasit Vectors. 2015;8:288. doi: 10.1186/s13071-015-0895-1. PubMed DOI PMC

Kašný M, Beran L, Siegelová V, Siegel T, Leontovyč R, Beránková K, et al. Geographical distribution of the giant liver fluke (Fascioloides magna) in the Czech Republic and potential risk of its further spread. Vet Med. 2012;57:101–109.

Ursprung J, Joachim A, Prosl H. Incidence and control of the American giant liver fluke, Fascioloides magna, in a population of wild ungulates in the Danubian wetlands east of Vienna. Berl Munch Tierarztl. 2005;119:316–323. PubMed

Wobeser BK, Schumann F. Fascioloides magna infection causing fatal pulmonary hemorrhage in a steer. Can Vet J. 2014;55:1093. PubMed PMC

Foreyt W, Todd A. Development of the large American liver fluke, Fascioloides magna, in white-tailed deer, cattle, and sheep. J Parasitol. 1976;62:26–32. doi: 10.2307/3279036. PubMed DOI

Malcicka M. Life history and biology of Fascioloides magna (Trematoda) and its native and exotic hosts. Ecol Evol. 2015;5:1381–1397. doi: 10.1002/ece3.1414. PubMed DOI PMC

Karamon J, Larska M, Jasik A, Sell B. First report of the giant liver fluke (Fascioloides magna) infection in farmed fallow deer (Dama dama) in Poland - pathomorphological changes and molecular identification. B Vet I Pulawy. 2015;59:339–344.

Pybus MJ. Liver flukes. In: Samuel WM, Pybus MJ, Kocan AA, editors. Parasitic diseases of wild mammals. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Press; 2001. pp. 121–149.

Semyenova SK, Morozova EV, Chrisanfova GG, Gorokhov VV, Arkhipov IA, Moskvin AS, et al. Genetic differentiation in eastern European and western Asian populations of the liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica, as revealed by mitochondrial nad1 and cox1 genes. J Parasitol. 2006;92(3):525–30. doi: 10.1645/GE-673R.1. PubMed DOI

Králová Hromadová I, Špakulová M, Horáčková E, Turčeková L, Novobilský A, Beck R, et al. Sequence analysis of ribosomal and mitochondrial genes of the giant liver fluke Fascioloides magna (Trematoda: Fasciolidae): intraspecific variation and differentiation from Fasciola hepatica. J Parasitol. 2008;94(1):58–67. doi: 10.1645/GE-1324.1. PubMed DOI

Bazsalovicsová E, Králová Hromadová I, Radvánszky J, Beck R. The origin of the giant liver fluke, Fascioloides magna (Trematoda: Fasciolidae) from Croatia determined by high-resolution melting screening of mitochondrial cox1 haplotypes. Parasitol Res. 2013;112:2661–2666. doi: 10.1007/s00436-013-3433-0. PubMed DOI

Cantacessi C, Mulvenna J, Young ND, Kašný M, Horák P, Aziz A, et al. A deep exploration of the transcriptome and “excretory/secretory” proteome of adult Fascioloides magna. Mol Cell Proteomics. 2012;11:1340–1353. doi: 10.1074/mcp.M112.019844. PubMed DOI PMC

Liu GH, Gasser RB, Young ND, Song HQ, Ai L, Zhu XQ. Complete mitochondrial genomes of the ‘intermediate form’ of Fasciola and Fasciola gigantica, and their comparison with F. hepatica. Parasit Vectors. 2014;7:150. doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-7-150. PubMed DOI PMC

Ma J, He JJ, Liu GH, Zhou DH, Liu JZ, Liu Y, et al. Mitochondrial and nuclear ribosomal DNA dataset supports that Paramphistomum leydeni (Trematoda: Digenea) is a distinct rumen fluke species. Parasit Vectors. 2015;8:201. doi: 10.1186/s13071-015-0823-4. PubMed DOI PMC

Brabec J, Kostadinova A, Scholz T, Littlewood DTJ. Complete mitochondrial genomes and nuclear ribosomal RNA operons of two species of Diplostomum (Platyhelminthes: Trematoda): a molecular resource for taxonomy and molecular epidemiology of important fish pathogens. Parasit Vectors. 2015;8:336. doi: 10.1186/s13071-015-0949-4. PubMed DOI PMC

Yang X, Gasser RB, Koehler AV, Wang LX, Zhu KX, Chen L, et al. Mitochondrial genome of Hypoderaeum conoideum - comparison with selected trematodes. Parasit Vectors. 2015;8:97. doi: 10.1186/s13071-015-0720-x. PubMed DOI PMC

Gasser RB, Hu M, Chilton NB, Campbell BE, Jex AJ, Otranto D, et al. Single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) for the analysis of genetic variation. Nat Protoc. 2007;1:3121–3128. doi: 10.1038/nprot.2006.485. PubMed DOI

Morgan J, Blair D. Nuclear rDNA ITS sequence variation in the trematode genus Echinostoma: an aid to establishing relationships within the 37-collar-spine group. Parasitology. 1995;111:609–615. doi: 10.1017/S003118200007709X. PubMed DOI

Lowe TM, Eddy SR. tRNAscan-SE: a program for improved detection of transfer RNA genes in genomic sequence. Nucleic Acids Res. 1997;25:955–964. doi: 10.1093/nar/25.5.0955. PubMed DOI PMC

Castoe TA, Parkinson CL. Bayesian mixed models and the phylogeny of pitvipers (Viperidae: Serpentes) Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2006;39:91–110. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2005.12.014. PubMed DOI

Ronquist F, Huelsenbeck JP. MrBayes 3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics. 2003;19:1572–1574. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btg180. PubMed DOI

Chen YY, Chen S, Kang J, Fang H, Dao H, Guo WZ, et al. Evolving molecular epidemiological profile of human immunodeficiency virus 1 in the southwest border of China. PLoS One. 2014;9:e107578. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107578. PubMed DOI PMC

Le TH, Blair D, McManus DP. Complete DNA sequence and gene organization of the mitochondrial genome of the liverfluke, Fasciola hepatica L. (Platyhelminthes; Trematoda) Parasitology. 2001;123:609–621. doi: 10.1017/S0031182001008733. PubMed DOI

Ma J, He JJ, Liu GH, Blair D, Liu LZ, Liu Y, et al. Mitochondrial genome of Ogmocotyle sikae and implications for phylogenetic studies of the Notocotylidae trematodes. Infect Genet Evol. 2015;37:208–214. doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2015.11.018. PubMed DOI

Littlewood DTJ, Lockyer AE, Webster BL, Johnston DA, Le TH. The complete mitochondrial genomes of Schistosoma haematobium and Schistosoma spindale and the evolutionary history of mitochondrial genome changes among parasitic flatworms. Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2006;39:452–467. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2005.12.012. PubMed DOI

Biswal DK, Chatterjee A, Bhattacharya A, Tandon V. The mitochondrial genome of Paragonimus westermani (Kerbert, 1878), the Indian isolate of the lung fluke representative of the family Paragonimidae (Trematoda) Peer J. 2014;2:e484. doi: 10.7717/peerj.484. PubMed DOI PMC

Tkach VV, Kudlai O, Kostadinova A. Molecular phylogeny and systematics of the Echinostomatoidea Looss, 1899 (Platyhelminthes: Digenea) Int J Parasitol. 2015;46:15. PubMed

Heneberg P. Phylogenetic data suggest the reclassification of Fasciola jacksoni (Digenea: Fasciolidae) as Fascioloides jacksoni comb. nov. Parasitol Res. 2013;112:1679–1689. doi: 10.1007/s00436-013-3326-2. PubMed DOI

Lotfy WM, Brant SV, DeJong RJ, Le TH, Demiaszkiewicz A, Rajapakse RJ, et al. Evolutionary origins, diversification, and biogeography of liver flukes (Digenea, Fasciolidae) Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2008;79:248–255. PubMed PMC

Characterization of the complete mitochondrial genome of Uvitellina sp., representative of the family Cyclocoelidae and phylogenetic implications