Abstract
Monieziasis is a parasite-borne production-limiting disease of livestock. Moniezia expansa is the most important species having cosmopolitan distribution. Despite of numerous prevalence reports, very little information is available about the evolutionary biology and population genetics of M. expansa. To close this research gap, this study was undertaken to recognize and inspect the genetic variation of M. expansa populations around the world using the cox1 and nad1 genes and deduce phylogenetic relationships with M. expansa populations. The cox1 and nad1 gene sequences were downloaded from the NCBI GenBank database. Followed by sequence alignment, median-joining networks were constructed using PopArt software. Diversity and neutrality indices were computed through DnaSp software while MEGA software was used to draw the maximum-likelihood phylogenetic tree. Thirty-two cox1 sequences, from five different countries, and 9 nad1 sequences from three different countries, were among the sequences used in this study. The cox1 and nad1 gene sequences had mutations in 97 and 36 different places, respectively. Twenty and 7 unique haplotypes were discovered for the cox1 and nad1 gene sequences, respectively. Comparable haplotype diversities were observed for both the genes under study (cox1 = 0.950; nad1 = 0.944). Negative Tajima's D and Fu Fs were found for the cox1 gene while these indices were positive for the nad1 gene. Phylogenetic analysis also showed the existence of unique haplotypes for both the cox1 and nad1 genes. The results of this study indicate that there is the existence of a huge genetic diversity in M. expansa isolates. For future studies, it is recommended that longer gene sequences should be used to describe genetic variation among M. expansa isolates as the length of the gene under study affects the genetic variation. Moreover, additional mitochondrial markers should also be investigated because the assertive strength of a group of gene targets is superior to defining genetic diversity.