NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCES OF DNA FRAGMENTS OF ENCEPHALITOZOON-CUNICULI AMPLIFIED BY POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION WITH PRIMERS REGARDED AS SPECIFIC FOR ECHINOCOCCUS

Encephalitozoon-like spores were separated from a human echinococcal l iver lesion, which was caused by Echinococcus multilocularis. They wer e found to fall into the species Encephalitozoon cuniculi, which was s hown to have En. cuniculi-specific DNA by way of polymerase chain reac tion (PCR). We also used PCR to genetically discriminate between the E n. cuniculi spores and the Ec. multilocularis larvae. Two primer sets, known to be specific for Echinococcus, were examined. These primers w ere expected to work normally when the two quite different DNA prepara tions were tested as templates, i.e. only Echinococcus DNA could give a positive signal in the PCR tests. However, it was found that the two Echinococcus-specific primer sets could amplify not only Ec. multiloc ularis DNA, but also En. cuniculi spore DNA. We then tried to determin e the order of nucleotides in the Echinococcus-specific primers-amplif ied En, cuniculi PCR products and compared the determined sequences wi th those of Ec. multilocularis. The results clearly indicated that seq uencing made little difference between En. cuniculi and Ec. multilocul aris.