%0 Journal Article
%T Unique genetic structure of the human tapeworm Dibothriocephalus latus from the Alpine lakes region - a successful adaptation?
%A Radačovská A
%A Čisovská Bazsalovicsová E
%A Šoltys K
%A Štefka J
%A Minárik G
%A Gustinelli A
%A Chugunova JK
%A Králová-Hromadová I
%J Parasitology
%V 149
%N 8
%D 07 2022
%M 35570686
%F 3.243
%R 10.1017/S0031182022000634
%X Dibothriocephalus latus is the most frequent causative agent of fish-borne zoonosis (diphyllobothriosis) in Europe, where it is currently circulating mainly in the Alpine lakes region (ALR) and Russia. Three mitochondrial genes (cox1, cob and nad3) and 6 microsatellite loci were analysed to determine how is the recently detected triploidy/parthenogenesis in tapeworms from ALR displayed at the DNA level. A geographically distant population from the Krasnoyarsk Reservoir in Russia (RU-KR) was analysed as a comparative population. One or 2 alleles of each microsatellite locus was detected in plerocercoids from RU-KR, corresponding to the microsatellite pattern of a diploid organism. In contrast, 1–3 alleles were observed in tapeworms from ALR, in accordance with their triploidy. The high diversity of mitochondrial haplotypes in D. latus from RU-KR implied an original and relatively stable population, but the identical structure of mitochondrial genes of tapeworms from ALR was probably a consequence of a bottleneck typical of introduced populations. These results indicated that the diploid/sexually reproducing population from RU-KR was ancestral, located within the centre of the distribution of the species, and the triploid/parthenogenetically reproducing subalpine population was at the margin of the distribution. The current study revealed the allelic structure of the microsatellite loci in the triploid tapeworm for the first time.