Korean J Parasitol.  2013 Oct;51(5):595-597.

Serological and Molecular Characteristics of the First Korean Case of Echinococcus multilocularis

• Jeong JS
• Han SY
• Kim YH
• Sako Y
• Yanagida T
• Ito A
• Chai JY

Abstract

In December 2011, we reported an autochthonous case of Echinococcus multilocularis infection in a 42-year-old woman in Korea. The diagnosis was based on histopathological findings of the surgically resected liver cyst. In the present study, we evaluated the serological and molecular characteristics of this Korean E. multilocularis case. The patient's serum strongly reacted with affinity-purified native Em18 and recombinant Em18 antigens (specific for E. multilocularis) but negative for recombinant antigen B8/1 (reactive for Echinococcus granulosus). In immunoaffinity chromatography, the serum also strongly reacted with E. multilocularis and only weakly positive for E. granulosus. We determined the whole nucleotide sequence of cox1 (1,608 bp) using the paraffin-embedded cystic tissue which was compared with E. multilocularis isolates from China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Austria, France, and Slovakia. The Korean case showed 99.8-99.9% similarity with isolates from Asia (the highest similarity with an isolate from Sichuan, China), whereas the similarity with European isolates ranged from 99.5 to 99.6%.

Keyword

Echinococcus multilocularis; alveolar echinococcosis; immunodiagnosis; cox1; South Korea

MeSH Terms

Adult
Animals
Antibodies, Helminth/*blood
Antigens, Helminth/genetics/*immunology/metabolism
Base Sequence
Echinococcosis, Hepatic/*immunology/parasitology
Echinococcosis, Pulmonary/diagnosis/genetics/immunology
Echinococcus granulosus/genetics/immunology
Echinococcus multilocularis/genetics/*immunology/isolation & purification
Electron Transport Complex IV/genetics
Female
Humans
Mitochondria/genetics
Molecular Sequence Data
Republic of Korea
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Antibodies, Helminth
Antigens, Helminth
Electron Transport Complex IV