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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, June 2000, p. 2339-2343, Vol. 38, No. 6
Department of Medicine and
Microbiology/Immunology, University of Arizona College of Medicine,
Tucson, Arizona1; Department of
Veterinary Science and Microbiology, University of Arizona, Tucson,
Arizona 857212; and Department of
International Health, The Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public
Health, Baltimore, Maryland 212053
Received 29 October 1999/Returned for modification 28 February
2000/Accepted 28 March 2000
Cyclospora cayetanensis is an apicomplexan protozoan
parasite which has emerged as an important cause of epidemic and
endemic diarrhea. Water-borne as well as food-borne outbreaks have
occurred, including a large number of U.S. cases associated with
raspberries imported from Guatemala. Molecular markers exist for
tracing the epidemiology of many of the bacterial pathogens associated
with water-borne or food-borne diarrhea, such as serotyping and
pulsed-field electrophoresis. However, there are currently no molecular
markers available for C. cayetanensis. The intervening
transcribed spacer (ITS) regions between the small- and large-subunit
rRNA genes demonstrate much greater sequence variability than the
small-subunit rRNA sequence itself and have been useful for the
molecular typing of other organisms. Thus, ITS1 variability might allow
the identification of different genotypes of C. cayetanensis. In order to determine the degree of ITS1
variability among C. cayetanensis isolates, the ITS1
sequences of C. cayetanensis isolates from a variety of
sources, including raspberry-associated cases, cases from Guatemala, and pooled and individual isolates from Peru, were obtained. The ITS1
sequences of all five raspberry-associated isolates were identical,
consistent with their origin from a single source. In contrast, one of
the two Guatemala isolates and two Peruvian isolates contained multiple
ITS1 sequences. These multiple sequences could represent multiple
clones from a single clinical source or, more likely, variability of
the ITS1 region within the genome of a single clone.
0095-1137/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Intervening Transcribed Spacer Region 1 Variability
in Cyclospora cayetanensis

*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Dept of
Microbiology and Immunology, University of Arizona College of Medicine,
1501 N. Campbell, Tucson, AZ 85724. Phone: (520) 626-6430. Fax: (520) 626-2100. E-mail: adamr{at}u.arizona.edu.
Present address: Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement,
University of Georgia, Griffin, GA 30223.
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