IDENTIFICATION OF TRICHINELLA-PSEUDOSPIRALIS FROM A HUMAN CASE USING RANDOM AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA

A human case of infection by Trichinella pseudospiralis has recently b een described. Some morphologic anomalies of the muscle larvae, howeve r, raise the possibility of an incorrect taxonomic attribution. A mole cular taxonomic approach has therefore been applied for the identifica tion of the parasite. Random amplified polymorphic DNAs were obtained from a single larva extracted from a muscle biopsy of the suspected ca se of T. pseudospiralis infection, and compared with those derived fro m 27 reference strains of Trichinella spp. Nearly identical amplificat ion patterns were obtained from the suspected larva and from reference strains of T. pseudospiralis, thus supporting the original morphology -based identification. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and Wester n blots carried out on pretreatment and post-treatment sera provided f urther confirmation.