Molecular and phylogenetic characterisation of Fasciola spp. isolated from cattle and sheep in southeastern Iran

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the genotype of Fasciola spp. in animal hosts from Za-hedan, Sistan and Baluchestan province, southeastern Iran using PCR-RFLP. Overall, 50 and 43 adult Fasciola spp. were isolated from bile ducts of naturally infected cattle and sheep. PCR-RFLP with RsaI restriction enzyme and sequence analysis of the first nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS 1) region from Fasciola spp. were used to conduct the study. RFLP pattern with RsaI produced 180 and 331 bp fragments in F. gigantica and amplicons of F. hepatica had a size of 77, 104 and 331 bp. Results based on PCR-RFLP analysis were confirmed by sequence analysis of repre-sentative ITS 1 amplicons. No hybrid forms were detected in the present study. All sheep were in-fected with F. hepatica while cattle were infected with both species. The results of our study showed that F. hepatica and F. gigantica isolates were of common H1 and G1 haplotypes.

Keywords

• cattle
• Fasciola
• Iran
• genotype
• RFLP-PCR
• sheep
• Sistan and Baluchestan