Strain differentiation in microsporidia.

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular, spore-forming protozoa and are regarded as newly emerging pathogens . Enterocytozoon spp. as well as Encephalitozoon spp. are recognized as major aetiological agents in chronic diarrhoea of immnunocompromised patients. The detection and differentiation of strains within microsporidial species is a prerequisite for the elucidation of their hitherto unknown reservoirs and their mode of transmission . In Enterocytozoon bieneusi, the most prevalent human-pathogenic microsporidium, 6 different genotypes of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of the rRNA gene are known so far, with 12 polymorphic sites . This pathogen has infrequently been detected in 2 animal hosts only, pigs and rhesus macaques, and only the genotype of the latter has also been found in a human patient, too. Encephalitozoon cuniculi has a wider confirmed spectrum of animal hosts, but only one polymorphic site is known in the ITS, differing in 3 different numbers of a tetranucleotide repeat. Therefore, further genomic targets may have to be characterized, too. Few data are available on strain differentiation in Encephalitozoon intestinalis and E. hellem.

[1]  F. Derouin,et al.  Determination of Types of Enterocytozoon bieneusiStrains Isolated from Patients with Intestinal Microsporidiosis , 1998, Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

[2]  F. Derouin,et al.  Detection of Microsporidia and Identification of Enterocytozoon bieneusi in Surface Water by Filtration Followed by Specific PCR. , 1997, The Journal of eukaryotic microbiology.

[3]  Alexander Mathis,et al.  Two Encephalitozoon cuniculi strains of human origin are infectious to rabbits , 1997, Parasitology.

[4]  H. Rinder,et al.  Evidence for the existence of genetically distinct strains of Enterocytozoon bieneusi , 1997, Parasitology Research.

[5]  A. Mathis,et al.  Immunologic and molecular characteristics of Encephalitozoon-like microsporidia isolated from humans and rabbits indicate that Encephalitozoon cuniculi is a zoonotic parasite. , 1996, Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

[6]  A. Mathis,et al.  Isolates of Encephalitozoon cuniculi from farmed blue foxes (Alopex lagopus) from Norway differ from isolates from Swiss domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) , 1996, Parasitology Research.

[7]  C. Vossbrinck,et al.  Identification and characterization of three Encephalitozoon cuniculi strains , 1995, Parasitology.

[8]  A. Maerz,et al.  In vitro growth of the microsporidian Septata intestinalis from an AIDS patient with disseminated illness , 1995, Journal of clinical microbiology.

[9]  S. Katiyar,et al.  Comparisons of ribosomal RNA sequences from amitochondrial protozoa: implications for processing, mRNA binding and paromomycin susceptibility. , 1995, Gene.

[10]  L. Weiss,et al.  Ribosomal RNA Sequences of Enterocytozoon bieneusi, Septata intestinalis and Ameson michaelis: Phylogenetic Construction and Structural Correspondence , 1994, The Journal of eukaryotic microbiology.

[11]  L. Weiss,et al.  Nucleotide sequence of the small subunit rRNA of Septata intestinalis. , 1993, Nucleic acids research.

[12]  C. Vossbrinck,et al.  Ribosomal Dna Sequences of Encephalitozoon Hellem and Encephalitozoon Cuniculi: Species Identification and Phylogenetic Construction , 1993, The Journal of eukaryotic microbiology.