Cryptic diversity in a gastrointestinal acanthocephalan of New World primates from Costa Rica

Prosthenorchis elegans is a worm of the family Archiacanthocephala that infects non-human primates in the Americas, producing an intestinal pathology that may compromise the life of its hosts. Squirrel monkeys, Saimiri oerstedii citrinellus, were found with P. elegans in Costa Rica. Histopathological analysis revealed a severe pyogranulomatous response composed by macrophages, neutrophils, eosinophils, fibroblasts and lymphocytes. Morphological worm analyses revealed 36 hooks in the proboscis distributed in six rows; and total body, hook and lemnisci length were compatible to the original descriptions of P. elegans. In addition, phylogenetic, haplotype network and genetic distance analyses were done on cytochrome oxidase subunit 1, cox1, sequences obtained from the collected specimens. Sequences obtained herein clustered separately with high posterior probabilities in a Bayesian Inference tree and showed 8.12% nucleotide differences when compared to P. elegans from Colombia. This high divergence was confirmed in the TCS network that separated Colombian and Costa Rican sequences by 32 mutational steps, a genetic distance PCA which separated sequences from both geographical locations by 89.5% and an F-ST value of 0.655, indicating the presence of cryptic diversity in P. elegans. Additional studies from specimens collected from other definitive hosts and geographical locations are required to better understand the biodiversity of this species.

Automated summary

Prosthenorchis elegans is a parasite that infects non-human primates in the Americas, causing intestinal pathology that can be life-threatening. Squirrel monkeys in Costa Rica were found to be infected with P. elegans. Histopathological analysis showed a severe pyogranulomatous response characterized by the presence of macrophages, neutrophils, eosinophils, fibroblasts, and lymphocytes.