PHYLOGENY OF ANGIOSTRONGYLUS CANTONENSIS IN THAILAND BASED ON CYTOCHROME C OXIDASE SUBUNIT I GENE SEQUENCE.

Angiostrongylus cantonensis is an emerging infectious agent causing eosinophilic meningitis or meningoencephalitis in humans with clinical manifestation of severe headache. Molecular genetic studies on classification and phylogeny of A. cantonensis in Thailand are limited. This study surveyed A. cantonensis larvae prevalence in natural intermediate hosts across Thailand and analyzed their phylogenetic relationships. A total of 14,032 freshwater and land snails were collected from 19 provinces of Thailand. None of Filopaludina sp, Pomacea sp, and Cyclophorus sp were infected with Angiostrongylus larvae, whereas Achatina fulica, Cryptozona siamensis, and Megaustenia siamensis collected from Kalasin, Kamphaeng Phet, Phetchabun, Phitsanulok, and Tak Provinces were infected, with C. siamensis being the common intermediate host. Based on morphology, larvae isolated from 11 samples of these naturally infected snails preliminarily were identified as A. cantonensis. Comparison of partial nucleotide sequences of cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene revealed that four sequences are identical to A. cantonensis haplotype ac4 from Bangkok and the other seven to that of A. cantonensis isolate AC Thai, indicating two independent lineages of A. cantonensis in Thailand.