Phylogenetic relationships among Acanthamoeba spp. based on PCR-RFLP analyses of mitochondrial small subunit rRNA gene.

We investigated the value of mitochondrial small subunit rRNA gene (mt SSU rDNA) PCR-RFLP as a taxonomic tool for Acanthamoeba isolates with close inter-relationships. Twenty-five isolates representing 20 species were included in the analysis. As in nuclear 18S rDNA analysis, two type strains (A. astronyxis and A. tubiashi) of morphological group 1 diverged earliest from the other strains, but the divergence between them was less than in 18S riboprinting. Acanthamoeba griffini of morphological group 2 branched between pathogenic (A. culbertsoni A-1 and A. healyi OC-3A) and nonpathogenic (A. palestinensis Reich, A. pustulosa GE-3a, A. royreba Oak Ridge, and A lenticulata PD2S) strains of morphological group 3. Among the remaining isolates of morphological group 2, the Chang strain had the identical mitochondrial riboprints as the type strain of A. hatchetti. AA2 and AA1, the type strains of A. divionensis and A. paradivionensis, respectively, had the identical riboprints as A. quina Vil3 and A. castellanii Ma. Although the branching orders of A. castellanii Neff, A. polyphaga P23, A. triangularis SH621, and A. lugdunensis L3a were different from those in 18S riboprinting analysis, the results obtained from this study generally coincided well with those from 18S riboprinting. Mitochondrial riboprinting may have an advantage over nuclear 18S rDNA riboprinting because the mt SSU rDNAs do not seem to have introns that are found in the 18S genes of Acanthamoeba and that distort phylogenetic analyses.