First Record of Molecular Confirmation, Phylogeny and Haplotype Diversity of Haemonchus contortus from Gaddi (breed) Goats of North India

HIGHLIGHTS

• First report of phylogeny and haplotype diversity of Haemonchus contortus isolated from Gaddi (breed) goats of North India.

• The occurrence of different haplotypes evinced presence of indels at distinct places.

• There was probable establishment of heterozygosity in putative hybrid H. contortus worms.

Abstract:

In the present study, molecular identification and genotypic characterization of H. contortus was carried out targeting 28S-18S rRNA intergenic spacer. Faecal samples of Gaddi goats were collected and subjected to qualitative screening. The samples exhibiting the presence of strongyle type eggs were introduced to faecal culturing. The larvae retrieved were molecularly confirmed as of H. contortus species and the phylogenetics was performed. For the estimation of evolutionary divergence in between the present study isolates with the GenBank archived sequences, maximum composite likelihood model was employed. Nucleotide and haplotype diversity indices and Fu’s Fs were also estimated. Approximately 260 bp size amplicons retrieved were confirmatory for the presence of H. contortus species. Phylogenetic analysis also accentuated that present parasite isolates were of H. contortus only. The nucleotide diversity (π) obtained was 0.06696, whereas, haplotype diversity was 0.92549 [95% CI: 0.77778-1.0000]. In between the isolates, Fu's Fs statistic value was positive (1.566), evidencing a deficiency of alleles, which would have happened due to recent population bottleneck. The recovered representative sequences were deposited in GenBank under the accession numbers LC600315-LC600317.To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first report of phylogeny and haplotype diversity of H. contortus isolated from Gaddi goats of North India. The present study would also serve the basis for future detailed molecular epidemiological studies using discriminative markers for the assessment of genetic diversity in different populations of H. contortus in different hosts of the study area.

Keywords:
Haemonchus contortus; haplotype diversity; Gaddi breed; goats; phylogeny