期刊名称：Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine
印刷版ISSN：1232-1966
电子版ISSN：1898-2263
出版年度：2018
卷号：25
期号：3
页码：1-6
DOI：10.26444/aaem/81315
出版社：Institute of Agricultural Medicine in Lublin
摘要：Blastocystis is a unicellular, anaerobic protist which lives in the intestinal tract of diverse animals, including humans. It was
found that the host specificity and the pathogenic potential of different isolates are correlated with sequence variations
in the SSU-rRNA gene. Identification of the organism to the species level is still an unresolved challenge. Genetic diversity
revisions have led to the identification of 17 subtypes (STs) within the Blastocystis genus, and 9 (ST1 to ST9) have been reported
in humans with varying prevalence. Since the members of the genus revealed a large genetic diversity, several molecular
modalities of subtyping methods have been developed. Numerous studies on conveying the pathogenic potential to the
molecular subtypes are available, but they could not be compared or analysed with the different molecular techniques
employed. The use of different approaches may give false positives during diagnosis and the possibility of missed infections.
A review of recent scientific literature indicates that the development of PCR assays is needed for molecular epidemiology
and for mixed infections in health and disease cohorts, and also to help identify sources of Blastocystis transmission to
humans, as well as to identify potential animal and environmental reservoirs. This review summarizes some of the recent
progress and improvements in Blastocystis research on genetic diversity, taxonomy, molecular epidemiology, pathogenicity
and subtyping methods.
