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1 Center for Comparative Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908, USA
2 National Wildlife Health Center, United States Geological Survey, Madison, Wisconsin 53711, USA
3 Corresponding author (email: shf2b{at}virginia.edu)
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Samples of A. penneri microdissected cysts from infected skin of Bufo americanus used in this study had been previously collected at New London Submarine Base, Connecticut (designated 18617-002) and Petersburg National Battlefield, Virginia (designated 4825-004) and had been stored frozen in ethanol. Histologically, A. penneri elicited a granulatous inflammatory cell response in which spores were extracellular, 10 µm in diameter, and contained approximately twenty 14 µm inclusions and a central nucleus (data not shown). A more comprehensive description of the morpohology of A. penneri isolates and the pathology elicited by its presence has been published elsewhere (Green and Converse, 2005). DNA was isolated using DNeasy tissue kit (Qiagen Corporation, Valencia, California, USA) according to the manufacturers recommendations for animal tissues, and sampling emphasized microdissected cysts within infected tissues. Five microliters of the isolated DNA was subjected to amplification in 50 µl polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) using Ex-Taq polymerase reagents (Takara Mirus Bio Corp., Madison, Wisconsin, USA) according to manufacturers recommendations and 0.5 µM of each primer. A 9600 gradient Robocycler (Strategene, La Jolla, California, USA) was set to the following PCR parameters: 95 C hot start for 90 sec, 35 cycles of 95 C (45 sec)/55 C (60 sec)/72 C (140 sec), and a final extension of 72 C for 5 min. Five microliters of each reaction was analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis. The resulting 1.6 kB amplicons were ligated into TOPO pCR-4 (Invitrogen Corp., Carlsbad, California, USA) and used to transform chemically competent Top 10 E. coli (Invitrogen) that were plated onto LB agar containing 100 µg/ml ampicillin. Ten colonies from each sample were selected and grown separately overnight in LB-ampicillin broth. The plasmids were isolated using a Plasmid minikit (Qiagen), eluted with water, and analyzed by EcoRI restiction digest (New England Biolabs, Waverly, Massachusetts, USA). Six plasmids containing the amplicon insert from each isolate were submitted for DNA sequencing to Davis Sequencing (Davis, California, USA) in the forward (from the T3 site) and reverse (from the T7 site) directions. The entire procedure of amplification, cloning, and sequence analysis was repeated once with the same sample DNAs and the sequence results combined with those determined initially for unambiguous characterization of the amplified DNA sequence.
Alignment of all forward sequences for each geographic isolate, and separately for all reverse sequences, was performed using Omiga 1.1 (Oxford Molecular Ltd., Oxford, UK). Separate consensus sequences were determined for the Connecticut and the Virginia isolates, and the two consensus sequences aligned for comparison. Phylogenetic analysis of the consensus sequences used the same GenBank sequences used for primer development plus Amphibiocystidium ranae (GenBank accession AY550245 and AY692319; Pereira et al., 2005), Dermocystidium percae (GenBank accession AF533941; Pascolini et al., 2003), Amoebidium parasiticum (GenBank accession Y19155; Ustinova et al., 2000), Anurofeca richardsi (GenBank accession AF070445; Baker et al., 1999), Ichthyophonida gen. sp. LKM51 (GenBank accession AJ130859; Van Hannen et al., 1999), Psorospermium haeckeli (GenBank accession U33180; Ragan et al., 1996), Sphaeroforma arctica (GenBank accession Y16260; Jostensen et al., 2002), Sphaerothecum destruens (GenBank accession AY267346; Arkush et al., 2003), Capsaspora owczarzaki (GenBank accession AF436886; Hartel et al., 2002). Microciona prolifera (GenBank accession L10825; Wainright et al., 1993), and Mnemiopsis leidyi (GenBank accession L10826; Wainright et al., 1993) were used to root the phylograms in the phylogenetic analyses. All GenBank sequences were converted to GCG sequence and truncated at the 5' and 3' ends to coincide with the sequences determined for the A. penneri amplicons. All 20 sequences were aligned and analyzed by parsimony analysis and again by maximum likelihood analysis using PHYLIP inference software (Felsenstein, 2004).
The significance of branch points (nodes) for the consensus phylogram generated was determined by bootstrap analysis of 1,000 datasets, each dataset searched for the most parsimonious tree. Bootstrap maximum likelihood analysis of the same 1,000 datasets was performed (with global rearrangement, the rough option turned off, and with the jumble set and random number seed again set to three). A single phylogram is presented using TREEVIEW (Page, 1996) that represents a consensus of trees from maximum likelihood analysis showing the number of trees in agreement at each node (Fig. 1
). Mnemiopsis leidyi and M. prolifera were used together as an outgroup to root the consensus tree. Phylograms were generated using maximum likelihood analysis with and without imposing a molecular clock (i.e., the tips of all branches were made equidistant from the root). The log likelihood of each maximum likelihood method was analyzed by Chi Square goodness-of-fit testing against the assumption that the small ribosomal subunit gene can function as a molecular clock.
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| RESULTS |
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Phylograms generated using maximum likelihood methods, with and without a molecular clock assumption, were of the same (unrooted) topology (data not shown). Imposing the molecular clock (natural log likelihood=8769) when compared with no clock assumption (natural log likelihood=8679) during analysis of the 18S small ribosomal subunit sequence was not statistically supported (
2=180, d.f.=18, P<0.005). Thus, maximum likelihood tree analysis with molecular clock assumption does not provide a relative estimate of the divergence of species within the class Mesomycetozoea.
| DISCUSSION |
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Amphibian population declines and species extinctions have been occurring worldwide over the past 25 yr (Green and Sherman, 2001; Green et al., 2002). In the United States amphibian population declines associated with emerging infectious diseases such as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (chytrid), iridovirus, and a dermocystidium-like infection (Green et al., 2002; 2003) have adversely affected natural populations. Although infection with A. penneri has not been shown to contribute directly to amphibian die-offs (Green et al., 2002), its importance may increase as ecologic stressors change over time. The 18S rRNA sequence determined for Amphibiothecum penneri isolates in the present study can be used to develop PCR protocols that are specific for this micro-organism; this will allow for rapid, sensitive, and specific identification of this organism from amphibian specimens. These sequences also provide much needed information to better understand the taxonomy of the Mesomycetozoea.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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Received for publication 8 November 2004.
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