Predominance of subtype 3 among Blastocystis isolates from a major hospital in Singapore
- 7 December 2007
- journal article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Zeitschrift für Parasitenkunde
- Vol. 102 (4), 663-670
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-007-0808-0
Abstract
Blastocystis is an enteric protozoan parasite commonly found in humans and animals. Phylogenetic and genotypic analyses have shown that Blastocystis exhibits extreme genetic diversity, and humans are host to a number of zoonotic isolates. In the present study, the prevalence of Blastocystis in 276 stool samples from a hospital in Singapore was examined, and for the first time, riboprinting using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used to determine the genetic diversity of the Blastocystis isolated from the Singapore population. The prevalence rate was determined to be 3.3% (9/276), and Blastocystis displaying two main ribotypes were isolated. As a comparison, we performed PCR-RFLP using two different published methodologies, and both methods allowed the isolates to be divided into two distinct groups based on their riboprint patterns. According to a recently proposed classification scheme, 78% (7/9) of the isolates were of subtype 3, while 22% (2/9) were subtype 1. The predominance of subtype 3 in an urbanized city state such as Singapore is in agreement with the idea that subtype 3 is a genotype of human origin.This publication has 40 references indexed in Scilit:
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