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Exploring Eimeria Genomes to Understand Population Biology: Recent Progress and Future Opportunities

Eimeria, protozoan parasites from the phylum Apicomplexa, can cause the enteric disease coccidiosis in all farmed animals. Coccidiosis is commonly considered to be most significant in poultry; due in part to the vast number of chickens produced in the World each year, their short generation time, an...

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Autores principales: Blake, Damer P., Worthing, Kate, Jenkins, Mark C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564333/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32967167
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes11091103
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author Blake, Damer P.
Worthing, Kate
Jenkins, Mark C.
author_facet Blake, Damer P.
Worthing, Kate
Jenkins, Mark C.
author_sort Blake, Damer P.
collection PubMed
description Eimeria, protozoan parasites from the phylum Apicomplexa, can cause the enteric disease coccidiosis in all farmed animals. Coccidiosis is commonly considered to be most significant in poultry; due in part to the vast number of chickens produced in the World each year, their short generation time, and the narrow profit margins associated with their production. Control of Eimeria has long been dominated by routine chemoprophylaxis, but has been supplemented or replaced by live parasite vaccination in a minority of production sectors. However, public and legislative demands for reduced drug use in food production is now driving dramatic change, replacing reliance on relatively indiscriminate anticoccidial drugs with vaccines that are Eimeria species-, and in some examples, strain-specific. Unfortunately, the consequences of deleterious selection on Eimeria population structure and genome evolution incurred by exposure to anticoccidial drugs or vaccines are unclear. Genome sequence assemblies were published in 2014 for all seven Eimeria species that infect chickens, stimulating the first population genetics studies for these economically important parasites. Here, we review current knowledge of eimerian genomes and highlight challenges posed by the discovery of new, genetically cryptic Eimeria operational taxonomic units (OTUs) circulating in chicken populations. As sequencing technologies evolve understanding of eimerian genomes will improve, with notable utility for studies of Eimeria biology, diversity and opportunities for control.
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spelling pubmed-75643332020-10-26 Exploring Eimeria Genomes to Understand Population Biology: Recent Progress and Future Opportunities Blake, Damer P. Worthing, Kate Jenkins, Mark C. Genes (Basel) Review Eimeria, protozoan parasites from the phylum Apicomplexa, can cause the enteric disease coccidiosis in all farmed animals. Coccidiosis is commonly considered to be most significant in poultry; due in part to the vast number of chickens produced in the World each year, their short generation time, and the narrow profit margins associated with their production. Control of Eimeria has long been dominated by routine chemoprophylaxis, but has been supplemented or replaced by live parasite vaccination in a minority of production sectors. However, public and legislative demands for reduced drug use in food production is now driving dramatic change, replacing reliance on relatively indiscriminate anticoccidial drugs with vaccines that are Eimeria species-, and in some examples, strain-specific. Unfortunately, the consequences of deleterious selection on Eimeria population structure and genome evolution incurred by exposure to anticoccidial drugs or vaccines are unclear. Genome sequence assemblies were published in 2014 for all seven Eimeria species that infect chickens, stimulating the first population genetics studies for these economically important parasites. Here, we review current knowledge of eimerian genomes and highlight challenges posed by the discovery of new, genetically cryptic Eimeria operational taxonomic units (OTUs) circulating in chicken populations. As sequencing technologies evolve understanding of eimerian genomes will improve, with notable utility for studies of Eimeria biology, diversity and opportunities for control. MDPI 2020-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7564333/ /pubmed/32967167 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes11091103 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Blake, Damer P.
Worthing, Kate
Jenkins, Mark C.
Exploring Eimeria Genomes to Understand Population Biology: Recent Progress and Future Opportunities
title Exploring Eimeria Genomes to Understand Population Biology: Recent Progress and Future Opportunities
title_full Exploring Eimeria Genomes to Understand Population Biology: Recent Progress and Future Opportunities
title_fullStr Exploring Eimeria Genomes to Understand Population Biology: Recent Progress and Future Opportunities
title_full_unstemmed Exploring Eimeria Genomes to Understand Population Biology: Recent Progress and Future Opportunities
title_short Exploring Eimeria Genomes to Understand Population Biology: Recent Progress and Future Opportunities
title_sort exploring eimeria genomes to understand population biology: recent progress and future opportunities
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564333/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32967167
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes11091103
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