Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Veterinary Science, University of Melbourne, Werribee, Victoria, Australia
Int J Parasitol, 1998 Apr;28(4):611-5.
PMID: 9602384

Abstract

The nucleotide sequences of the second internal transcribed spacer of rDNA were determined for adult worms of Necator americanus originating from Togo (Africa) and Sarawak (Malaysia). The length of the sequences of specimens from Togo (325 bp) were shorter than those from Sarawak (327 bp). There were six fixed genetic differences in the aligned sequences of N. americanus from Sarawak and Togo, excluding one or two polymorphic sites within the sequence of N. americanus from each geographical region. These findings suggest that there is either population variation in the sequence of N. americanus, or that N. americanus from the two countries may represent genetically distinct but morphologically similar (i.e. cryptic) species, however, comparison of the sequence differences among other hookworm species supports the latter conclusion.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.