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. 2019 Aug 8;19(1):183.
doi: 10.1186/s12866-019-1563-y.

Enterocytozoon bieneusi genotypes in cats and dogs in Victoria, Australia

Yan Zhang  1 , Anson V Koehler  2 , Tao Wang  1 , David Cunliffe  3 , Robin B Gasser  1
Affiliations

Enterocytozoon bieneusi genotypes in cats and dogs in Victoria, Australia

Yan Zhang et al. BMC Microbiol. .

Abstract

Background: Enterocytozoon bieneusi is one of the commonest microsporidians contributing to human microsporidiosis, and is frequently found in animals in various countries. However, there is limited epidemiological information on this microorganism in Australia. Here, we undertook the first molecular epidemiological study of E. bieneusi in cats and dogs in Victoria.

Results: Genomic DNAs were extracted from 514 individual faecal deposits from cats (n = 172) and dogs (n = 342) and then tested using PCR-based sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA. Four distinct genotypes (designated D, PtEb IX, VIC_cat1 and VIC_dog1) of E. bieneusi were identified in 20 of the 514 faecal samples (3.9%). Genotype D is known to have a broad host range (humans and other animals) and has a wide geographical distribution around the world. The identification of this genotype here suggests that companion animals might represent reservoir hosts that are able to transmit E. bieneusi infection to humans in Australia. A phylogenetic analysis of ITS sequence data revealed that the novel genotype VIC_cat1 is related to the known genotype type IV within Group 1, and the new genotype VIC_dog1 is linked to a contentious "Group 3", which includes genotypes reported previously in the published literature to represent Group 2 or 3.

Conclusions: A future, large-scale phylogenetic study of all known E. bieneusi genotypes, including VIC_dog1, should aid in clarifying their relationships and assignment to Groups, and in the identification of new genotypes, thus assisting epidemiological investigations.

Keywords: Australia; Cats; Dogs; Enterocytozoon bieneusi; Genotypes; Prevalence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Map indicating the geographical origins of individual cats and dogs from which faecal samples were collected in Victoria, Australia. Closed circles = locations from where faecal samples were collected. Blue open circles = Enterocytozoon bieneusi test-negative samples. Red open circles = E. bieneusi test-positive samples. Black solid circles = major cities in Victoria
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Phylogenetic analysis of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA sequence data (cf. Additional file 1: Table S1) by Bayesian inference (BI). Included here are ITS sequences of (i) E. bieneusi genotypes representing all currently recognised Groups (1 to 10) from the published literature, (ii) four genotypes of Enterocytozoon identified in the present study (bold-type) and (iii) the outgroup taxa. Statistically significant posterior probabilities (pp) of > 0.95 are indicated on branches. The scale-bar represents the number of substitutions per site. * = novel genotype
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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