The first detection of coccidia (Conoidasida: Eimeriidae) DNA in Godlewski’s sculpin Abyssocottus (Limnocottus) godlewskii (Dybowski, 1874)

Abstract

For the first time, fragments of the cox1 gene of a representative of the family Eimeriidae were obtained by high-throughput sequencing in the digestive tract of Godlewski’s sculpin Abyssocottus (Limnocottus) godlewskii (Dybowski, 1874). The nucleotide sequences of the coccidia, which accounted for less than 0.01% of the total data set, belonged to a single genotype and were significantly different from all previously known. Phylogenetic reconstruction based on the translated amino acid sequences reliably revealed the basal location of branches belonging to representatives of the family Eimeriidae among fishes. The question of the genus of the detected organism remains unresolved due to the limited nucleotide data for representatives of the genera Eimeria, Calyptospora, and Goussia from fish.