Echinococcus

Oguz B, Ozdal N, Kilinc OO, Serdar Deger M. 2018. Preliminary Studies on the Prevalence and Genotyping of Echinococcus Granulosus Infection in Stray Dogs in Van Province, Turkey.

• PCR targeted the cox1 gene in E. granulosus from samples isolated from the feces of stray dogs in Turkey. The comparative analysis of the gene to that of E. granulosus isolated from other areas and other mammalian species found a high degree of conservation. Thus, this primer set would likely be useful for detection of E. granulosus across many species. It is also specific to E. granulosus and did not target other Taenia species that were found in feces via microscopy. A molecular-based assay is necessary for accurate detection of E. granulosus since the eggs cannot be distinguished from E. multilocularis and other Taenia species.

Abbasi I., Branzburg A., Campos-Ponce M., Abdel Hafez S.K., Raoul F., Craig P.S., Hamburger J. 2003. Copro-diagnosis of Echinococcus granulosus infection in dogs by amplification of a newly identified repeated DNA sequence.

• PCR was developed to target the Hae III repeated sequence found in E. granulosus. PCR was performed on purified DNA from dog feces. This method had 100% specificity when tested against samples fecal infected with E. multilocularis and higher sensitivity than microscopy methods.