histolytica phenotype [3, 4]. The effect of the changes described in this study on the stability and function of the encoded protein is currently under investigation. Conclusions E. histolytica does not follow the model of T. gondii that exists predominantly in a few main lineages [52]. Rather, even in population from a single geographic location, majority of the individual parasites show

unique genotypes. The number of tRNA-linked genotypes discovered, are likely to continue increasing in number and will enable the measurement of strain diversity. However, the results presented in this work support the hypothesis that a relationship exists between the genotype of an E. histolytica strain and parasite virulence. find more Unlike the tRNA-linked sequence types (Ali et al, 2012) which are merely surrogate markers for the prediction of infection outcomes, non-synonymous SNPs detected selleck chemical in the present study shows promise to identify parasite factors directly linked to infection outcomes [26]. Although preliminary, our findings identified two candidate genes that may contribute to the pathogenesis of these parasites. The level of genetic

variation we observed increases the importance of the SNPs we have linked to disease. We are currently investigating the impact of the non-synonomous changes on the function of these proteins. To fully understand the genetics of this parasite, additional biomarkers will be needed to understand virulence and ZD1839 price different outcomes of the disease at the genome level. In the absence of stable clonal populations deeper characterization of the variation in the E. histolytica genome requires sequences from additional ameba strains. Using the protocol described in this paper usable sequence data was gathered from approximately half of the field samples. This allowed the testing of the association of selected candidate SNPs within an endemic population. Given the large amount of variation that occurs, SNPs need to be carefully chosen to type the virulence potential

in an E. histolytica http://www.selleck.co.jp/products/azd9291.html MLST schema rather than to reflect parasite phylogeny. Future studies are needed which focus on the genome of the infecting parasite in conjunction with the genome of the infected host. Methods Ethical approval The Ethical Review Committee at ICCDR,B approved this study. Written informed consent was provided by all study participants and/or their legal guardians. Cultured E. histolytica strains used for genotyping E. histolytica trophozoites isolated from patients of all age groups seen at the hospital for diarrheal diseases, or from children living in an urban slum area in Dhaka were established in culture at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B). Polyxenic cultures were maintained in biphasic Robinson’s medium at 37°C (listed in Additional file 1: Table S4) [53]. E.