Multilocus Genotyping of Sympatric Hepatozoon Species Infecting the Blood of Ontario Ranid Frogs Reinforces Species Differentiation and Identifies an Unnamed Hepatozoon Species
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Intraerythrocytic gamonts of at least 2 named Hepatozoon species have been reported to infect the erythrocytes of ranid frogs in Ontario, Canada. Although gamonts of both species are morphometrically similar, the cytopathological changes that 1 of these species, Hepatozoon clamatae, causes to host erythrocytes, manifested by nuclear fragmentation, was used historically to distinguish this parasite from Hepatozoon catesbianae. Molecular characterization of these 2 Hepatozoon species has been equivocal in correlating genotype with gamont morphotype. Amplification and sequencing of multiple potential genotyping loci within the nuclear (18S ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid [rDNA]; internal transcribed spacer 1), apicoplast (23S rDNA), and mitochondrial genomes (complete genomes, cytochrome c oxidase subunits I and III [COI and COIII], and cytochrome b) were conducted on Hepatozoon species that infect ranid frogs in Ontario. Sequence data were then used to evaluate the diversity of parasites present in these amphibian hosts and to assign genotypes to gamont morphotypes, if possible. Three distinct genotypes were identified at all loci; the data permitted the discovery of a third, formerly unrecognized Hepatozoon species in ranid frogs from Ontario. Although all genetic loci demonstrated differences between Hepatozoon species, mitochondrial COIII sequences were most suitable for genotypic differentiation of these parasites of frogs. Linking genotypes to gamont morphotypes proved impossible; genotypes identified as H. catesbianae and H. clamatae were found in infections with or without nuclear fragmentation of their host erythrocytes. This suggests that differentiating these species must rely on suitable genotyping methods for identification in the blood of their amphibian intermediate hosts.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".