Elucidating the identity of Anisakis larvae from a broad range of marine fishes from the Yellow Sea, China, using a combined electrophoretic-sequencing approach

Abstract

Larval nematodes were collected from marine fishes from the Yellow Sea, China. Specimens (n = 1731) of Anisakis type I from 311 fishes (representing 40 species) were each identified based on morphological characters. From the genomic DNA from individual specimens, a region of nuclear ribosomal DNA was amplified by PCR, followed by digestion with restriction endonuclease HinfI, TaqI or HhaI. Subsequently, the ITS-1 and ITS-2 regions of selected samples were sequenced. The results revealed three species of Anisakis, namely Anisakis pegreffii (n = 1709), A. typica (n = 3) and a genotype (n = 19) proposed, also based on comparison with previous studies, to be a "hybrid" between A. pegreffii and ..