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Evaluation of taxonomic validity of four species of Acanthamoeba: A. divionensis, A. paradivionensis, A. mauritaniensis, and A. rhysodes, inferred from molecular analyses  

LIU Hua (Department of Parasitology, Kyungpook National University School of Medicine)
MOON Eun-Kyung (Department of Parasitology, Kyungpook National University School of Medicine)
YU Hak-Sun (Department of Parasitology, Pusan National University School of Medicine)
JEONG Hae-Jin (Department of Parasitology, Pusan National University School of Medicine)
HONG Yeon-Chul (Department of Parasitology, Kyungpook National University School of Medicine)
KONG Hyun-Hee (Department of Parasitology, Kyungpook National University School of Medicine)
CHUNG Dong-Il (Department of Parasitology, Kyungpook National University School of Medicine)
Publication Information
Parasites, Hosts and Diseases / v.43, no.1, 2005 , pp. 7-13 More about this Journal
Abstract
The taxonomy of Acanthamoeba spp., an amphizoic amoeba which causes granulomatous amoebic encephalitis and chronic amoebic keratitis, has been revised many times. The taxonomic validity of some species has yet to be assessed. In this paper, we analyzed the morphological characteristics, nuclear 18s rDNA and mitochondrial 16s rDNA sequences and the Mt DNA RFLP of the type strains of four Acanthamoeba species, which had been previously designated as A. divionensis, A. parasidionensis, A. mauritaniensis, and A. rhysodes. The four isolates revealed characteristic group II morphology. They exhibited 18S rDNA sequence differences of $0.2-1.1\%$ with each other, but more than $2\%$ difference from the other compared reference strains. Four isolates formed a different clade from that of A. castellanii Castellani and the other strains in morphological group lion the phylogenetic tree. In light of these results, A. paradivionensis, A. divionensis, and A. mauritaniensis should be regarded as synonyms for A. rhysodes.
Keywords
Acanthamoeba; taxonomy; 18s rDNA sequence analysis;
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