Sparganosis is a parasitic disease in humans and animals caused by plerocercoid larvae (spargana) of the genus Spirometra. Spirometra erinaceieuropaei is the major causative agent of the disease in Asian countries. However, molecular evidence of the causative parasite species in animals remains lacking. A total of 19 spargana specimens were obtained from frogs, Hoplobatrachus rugulosus, collect...

Spirometra erinaceieuropaei cysteine protease (SeCP) in sparganum ES proteins recognized by early infection sera was identified by MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS. The aim of this study was to predict the structures and functions of SeCP protein by using the full length cDNA sequence of SeCP gene with online sites and software programs. The SeCP gene sequence was of 1 053 bp length with a 1011 bp biggest ORF ...

Trifurcula (Glaucolepis) lituanica Ivinskis & van Nieukerken, sp. nov., is described from adults reared from stemmining larvae on Salvia pratensis (Lamiaceae) from Lithuania and some specimens taken as adults in Austria, Slovenia and Greece. In addition the new species is recorded from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Romania. Superficially, it resembles Trifurcula (Glaucolepis) headleyella (St...

BACKGROUND Sparganosis is a very rare parasitic infection in various organs caused by the larvae of tapeworms called spargana. The larva usually lodges in the central nervous system (CNS) and the orbit. However, lumbar spinal canal involvement, as noted in the present case, is extremely rare. We report a rare case of disseminated CNS sparganosis involving the brain and spinal canal and review t...

The identification of diphyllobothriidean tapeworms (Cestoda: Diphyllobothriidea) that infect humans and intermediate/paratenic hosts is extremely difficult due to their morphological similarities, particularly in the case of Diphyllobothrium and Spirometra species. A pyrosequencing method for the molecular identification of pathogenic agents has recently been developed, but as of yet there hav...