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Genomic Polymorphism Among Blastocystis Isolates and Development of PCR-Based Identification of Zoonotic Isolates

Blastocystis hominis is known as the most common protozoan parasite of the human intestinal tract [9]. The species name, Blastocystis hominis is generally used for isolates from humans, although many B. hominis-like organisms have been isolated from various animals. These isolates have been designated as B. hominis, Blastocystis sp. or newly proposed species because there were no consensus for species designation for newly isolated Blastocystis from nonhuman hosts. On the other hand, several zoonotic strains were identified from a chicken and a guinea pig [6,10], and animal handlers had a significantly higher than normal rate of B. hominis infection [7] suggesting that Blastocystis in a variety of animals are potential sources of human infections. Therefore, it is important to characterize the zoonotic potential of Blastocystis found in animals. Recently we developed several sequence-tagged site (STS) primers developed from random amplified polymorphic DNAs. These amplified only distinct subtypes that corresponded to phylogenetically different clades (as inferred by the small subunit rRNA genes, SSU rDNA) [4,11–13], the STS primers can be used as a tool for typing Blastocystis populations. This PCR-based technique was recently reported to be a practical tool for typing B. hominis isolates from humans and animals and for detection of some zoonotic genotypes from animals [1–3,11–14]. In this study Blastocystis isolates from a variety of animals were analyzed with STS primers and compared with the genotypes of human B. hominis.