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Molecular Genetic Distinction of Pneumocystis carinii from Rats and Humans
Author(s) -
STRINGER JAMES R.,
STRINGER SAUNDRA L.,
ZHANG JIANXIONG,
BAUGHMAN ROBERT,
SMULIAN A. GEORGE,
CUSHION MELANIE T.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of eukaryotic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 1066-5234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1550-7408.1993.tb04468.x
Subject(s) - pneumocystis carinii , biology , gene , cytosine , dna , genetics , candida tropicalis , sequence analysis , base pair , nucleic acid sequence , homology (biology) , candida albicans , microbiology and biotechnology , virology , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , pneumocystis jirovecii
Pneumocystis carinii from rats and from humans were compared with respect to electrophoretic karyotype, presence of DNA sequences known to be repeated in rat‐derived P. carinii , overall DNA sequence homology, and the sequences at two genetic loci. The organisms from each host species were different in each respect. Neither of two repeated DNAs from rat‐derived P. carinii was found in the genome of human‐derived organisms, and total DNA from rat‐derived P. carinii failed to hybridize to human‐derived P. carinii DNA. The sequences of the α‐tubulin genes from the two P. carinii were strikingly different and the base composition of the α‐tubulin gene from rat‐derived P. carinii was rich in adenine and thymine, while the base composition of this gene from human‐derived P. carinii was rich in guanine and cytosine. The sequence from the 18S rRNA gene of human‐derived P. carinii was twice as divergent from that of rat‐derived P. carinii as the sequence from the corresponding region of Candida albicans was from that of Candida tropicalis. These data show that rats and humans can harbor distinct types of P. carinii that are sufficiently different to suggest that P. carinii from the two hosts could be different species.