Genetic differentiation amongst different Trypanosoma evansi isolates using random primer DNA typing

Abstract

Trypanosomosis (surra) caused by Trypanosoma evansi is one of the important diseases of livestock including equines. The disease has the widest geographical range of all the pathogenic trypanosome species and is a major constraint to livestock productivity on the three continents, Asia, Africa and South America. T. evansi infects a wide range of domestic and wild animals in India, viz. camels, horses, donkeys, mules, cattle, buffaloes, dogs, pigs, goats, tigers and elephants. It is hypothesized that T. evansi has evolved from T. brucei when infected camels moved to tse tse free areas and adapted to survive without natural biological vector and transformed to mechanical transmission through haematophagus biting flies and thus existence of sexual recombination in this species is highly unlikely and follow clonal propagation population structure. The variations in host susceptibility, virulence of different isolates are commonly observed conditions in animals suffering from surra. Therefore, study of genetic variability among different T. evansi isolates is very important to know molecular epidemiology, and formulation of prevention and control strategies of the disease. For specific detection and molecular typing of blood protozoan, random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique has gained importance in recent years. The present study was carried out to know genetic variability among Indian T. evansi isolates of different hosts and agro-ecological regions using RAPD- PCR approach with new and already reported informative primers.