| Abstract |
Schistosoma mekongi, a blood-dwelling fluke, is a water-borne parasite that is found in communities along the lower Mekong
River basin, i.e. Cambodia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic. This study developed a real-time PCR assay combined
with melting-curve analysis to detect S. mekongi in laboratory setting conditions, in experimentally infected snails, and in
fecal samples of infected rats. The procedure is based on melting-curve analysis of a hybrid between an amplicon from
S. mekongi mitochondrion sequence, the 260 bp sequence specific to S. mekongi, and specific fluorophore-labelled probes.
This method could detect as little as a single cercaria artificially introduced into a pool of 10 non-infected snails, a single
cercaria in filtered paper, and 2 eggs inoculated in 100 mg of non-infected rat feces. All S. mekongi-infected snails and fecal
samples from infected rats were positive. Non-infected snails, non-infected rat feces, and genomic DNA of other parasites
were negative. The method gave high sensitivity and specificity, and could be applied as a fast and reliable tool for cercarial
location in water environments in endemic areas and for epidemiological studies and eradication programmes for
intermediate hosts. |
Publication
Journal Publication
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