Discovery of a new Hepatozoon species namely Hepatozoon viperoi sp. nov. in nose-horned vipers in Türkiye

Autor: Onur Ceylan, Letícia Pereira Úngari, Gonca Sönmez, Cigdem Gul, Ceylan Ceylan, Murat Tosunoglu, Bengi Baycan, Lucia Helena O’Dwyer, Ferda Sevinc
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Scientific Reports, Vol 13, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2045-2322
36425281
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36814-w
Popis: Abstract Although Hepatozoon spp. remains the most prevalent intracellular protozoa infecting snakes, it was reported only in a few snake species of the Colubridae family in Türkiye. Moreover, studies on these hemoparasites are not available in venomous nose-horned vipers from Türkiye. In this study, we investigated Hepatozoon spp. in three individual Vipera ammodytes using morphological and molecular methods. Our results were positive for intraerythrocytic Hepatozoon spp. gamonts in all three snakes, exhibiting low parasitemia. The microscopic findings were further confirmed through molecular data. A genus-specific PCR assay targeting the 18S rRNA gene region of Hepatozoon spp., was performed using HemoF/HemoR and Hep300/Hep900 primers. The obtained sequences were concatenated and used in phylogenetic analyses in comparison with different Hepatozoon species. Although our (OP377741) isolate was separated into a different branch, it was clustered with the isolates of H. massardi (KC342526), H. cevapii (KC342525), and H. annulatum (ON262426) from Brazilian snakes. Moreover, gene similarity and pair-wise distance between our isolate and other Hepatozoon species infecting snakes were found to be 89.30–98.63% and 0.009–0.077, respectively. Hence, we reported a new species of Hepatozoon, namely Hepatozoon viperoi sp. nov. infecting V. ammodytes. Since the literature does not indicate the existence of such a Hepatozoon species in V. ammodytes in different countries, our data may contribute to the expanding knowledge of Hepatozoon species in snakes, providing new insights into the biodiversity of the haemogregarine protozoan parasite.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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