| Literature DB >> 27920396 |
Imène Ben Abda1,2, Nabil Maatoug1,2, Rania Ben Romdhane1, Nada Bouhelmi2, Najet Zallegua2, Karim Aoun1,2, Eric Viscogliosi3, Aïda Bouratbine4,2.
Abstract
Blastocystis sp. is currently the most common eukaryotic parasite found in humans. Despite its potential public health impact, epidemiological data regarding its prevalence and molecular subtype (ST) distribution in Maghreb are rarely reported. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of the parasite in a cohort of healthy food handler Tunisian individuals and to acquire the first molecular data regarding the distribution of Blastocystis sp. STs in this country. Therefore, 524 fecal samples were collected, and 68 of them (13%) were identified as positive for the parasite by direct-light microscopy of smears. Seventeen samples of 100 negative by microscopy were also shown to be positive by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Among all the positive samples, 61 Blastocystis isolates were subtyped using partial small subunit ribosomal RNA gene analysis. ST3 was the most abundant (51%) followed by ST1 (30%), ST2 (16%), and ST4 and ST7 (both 1.6%). © The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.Entities:
Mesh：
Year: 2016 PMID： 27920396 PMCID： PMC5239694 DOI： 10.4269/ajtmh.16-0506
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Am J Trop Med Hyg ISSN： 0002-9637 Impact factor: 2.345