Molecular prevalence of fish borne zoonotic trematodes in the snail intermediate host of kolkata , west bengal , india

A molecular approach was done to evaluate the prevalence of fish borne zoonotic trematodes in commonly available and consumed snail species of Kolkata, West Bengal. A total 70 fresh water snails of Bellamya spp. (Bellamya bengalensis) were collected from selected local markets located in and around Kolkata. Hepatopancreas were isolated in postmortem examination of snail tissues and genomic DNA was extracted from hepatopancreas of snails for molecular level identification. PCR amplification of genomic DNA was done using primers OPHET (470bp), ITS2 (380bp) and CS-ITS2 (380bp). Amplification of entire internal transcribed spacer regions of ribosomal DNA using primers conserved in many members of Opisthorchiidae and Heterophyidae confirmed that the parasite belongs to the above mentioned families. The prevalence of fish borne zoonotic trematodes belongs to Opisthorchiidae and Heterophyidae family in snail was found to be 31.43%, 35.71%, 37.14% using OPHET, ITS2 and CS-ITS2 primers, respectively. Snail harbouring such trematode is a cause of concern, as it acts as a 1 st intermediate host.