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Air sac trematodes: Morishitium polonicum as a newly identified cause of death in the common blackbird (Turdus merula).

ABSTRACT: Necropsy of two free-ranging common blackbirds (Turdus merula) found dead in central Italy revealed the presence of a high number of cyclocoelid flukes in the coelomatic cavity. Cyclocoelid flukes primarily infect avian respiratory system. Histologically, air sac walls were covered with a fibrinous exudate containing degenerate heterophils, many trematodes and some colonies of Gram-positive cocci. The superficial bronchi and parabronchi were markedly distended, and the adjacent pulmonary parenchyma was congested and collapsed. Trematodes, surrounded by a mild suppurative to pyogranulomatous inflammatory reaction, were also observed on the pericardial, intestinal, kidney and hepatic serosal surfaces. The death of the two examined birds was likely due to the high parasite load and associated severe lesions. At parasitological examination, flukes showed a tongue-shaped elongate body, tapered anteriorly and rounded posteriorly, of 2,088-2,314??m in width and 8,268-11,830??m in length. The mouth was slightly oval and sub-terminal, with a small oral sucker. The oval pharynx measured 250-309??m, and the two caeca joined posteriorly. Two large (550-702??m?×?450-520??m) globular testes were situated obliquely to each other, whereas an oval (250?×?300??m in mean) or round (about 334??m in diameter) intertesticular ovary was placed in a longitudinal straight line with the testes. The ootype was about 110??m in diameter, while the brown-yellow eggs measured 131.5?×?73.9??m in mean. The genital pore was post-pharyngeal, while the symmetrically arranged vitelline glands were not confluent posteriorly. Morphoflogical diagnosis led to the identification of Morishitium polonicum, a cyclocoelid fluke species that typically inhabits the air sacs of blackbirds. The morphological diagnosis was corroborated by molecular phylogenetic analysis of the mitochondrial (CO1, ND1) DNA loci. The present study provides the first report of pathological lesions and death caused by M. polonicum in birds.

SUBMITTER: Galosi L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6463545 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Air sac trematodes: Morishitium polonicum as a newly identified cause of death in the common blackbird (Turdus merula).

Galosi Livio L Heneberg Petr P Rossi Giacomo G Sitko Jilji J Magi Gian Enrico GE Perrucci Stefania S

International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife 20190330

Necropsy of two free-ranging common blackbirds (Turdus merula) found dead in central Italy revealed the presence of a high number of cyclocoelid flukes in the coelomatic cavity. Cyclocoelid flukes primarily infect avian respiratory system. Histologically, air sac walls were covered with a fibrinous exudate containing degenerate heterophils, many trematodes and some colonies of Gram-positive cocci. The superficial bronchi and parabronchi were markedly distended, and the adjacent pulmonary ...[more]

PMID: 31011529

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Project description:Background:In recent years, next generation high throughput sequencing technologies have proven to be useful tools for investigations concerning the genomics or transcriptomics also of non-model species. Consequently, ornithologists have adopted these technologies and the respective bioinformatics tools to survey the genomes and transcriptomes of a few avian non-model species. The Common Blackbird is one of the most common bird species living in European cities, which has successfully colonized urban areas and for which no reference genome or transcriptome is publicly available. However, to target questions like genome wide gene expression analysis, a reference genome or transcriptome is needed. Methods:Therefore, in this study two Common Blackbirds were sacrificed, their mRNA was isolated and analyzed by RNA-Seq to de novo assemble a transcriptome and characterize it. Illumina reads (125 bp paired-end) and a Velvet/Oases pipeline led to 162,158 transcripts. For the annotation (using Blast+), an unfiltered protein database was used. SNPs were identified using SAMtools and BCFtools. Furthermore, mRNA from three single tissues (brain, heart and liver) of the same two Common Blackbirds were sequenced by Illumina (75 bp single-end reads). The draft transcriptome and the three single tissues were compared by their BLAST hits with the package VennDiagram in R. Results:Following the annotation against protein databases, we found evidence for 15,580 genes in the transcriptome (all well characterized hits after annotation). On 18% of the assembled transcripts, 144,742 SNPs were identified which are, consequently, 0.09% of all nucleotides in the assembled transcriptome. In the transcriptome and in the single tissues (brain, heart and liver), 10,182 shared genes were found. Discussion:Using a next-generation technology and bioinformatics tools, we made a first step towards the genomic investigation of the Common Blackbird. The de novo assembled transcriptome is usable for downstream analyses such as differential gene expression analysis and SNP identification. This study shows the importance of the approach to sequence single tissues to understand functions of tissues, proteins and the phenotype.

Dataset Information

Air sac trematodes: Morishitium polonicum as a newly identified cause of death in the common blackbird (Turdus merula).

Publications

Air sac trematodes: <i>Morishitium polonicum</i> as a newly identified cause of death in the common blackbird (<i>Turdus merula</i>).

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