MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR DIFFERENTIATION OF Clinostomum complanatum (Digenea: Clinostomidae) METACERCARIAE INFECTING Cyprinus carpio IN ARAS RIVER

Abstract

Clinostomiasis is one of the parasitic diseases infecting freshwater fish caused by digenean trematode of the Clinostomidae family. In this study a total of 100 fish belonging to the nine species were collected from Aras River in 2021-2022. The collected fish then analyzed for infection with Clinostomum complanatum (C. complanatum) metacercaria. The partial mitochondrial COX-I gene were amplified for sequencing and phylogenetic analyses. Only one specimen belonging to Cyprinus carpio were found to be infected with metacercariae with the prevalence of 5%. The sequence analysis confirmed morphological identification as all metacercariae were belonging to C. complanatum with homology of 100% with other sequences of C. complanatum available in the NCBI database. The present study reports the first case of C. complanatum in Cyprinus carpio in Iran by morphological and molecular methods and emphasizes the possible risk of transmission for consumers.

Keywords

• Clinostomum complanatum
• Cyprinus carpio
• Aras River
• Ardabil