Characterisation of β-tubulin isotypes in <i>Uncinaria stenocephala</i> and implications for benzimidazole resistance in hookworms
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Uncinaria stenocephala is a widespread hookworm of dogs across Europe, Canada, southern Australia, and other temperate regions, where it often outnumbers infections caused by Ancylostoma caninum . Although a putative β-tubulin isotype-1 mutation associated with resistance has been detected in U. stenocephala , clinical resistance to benzimidazoles has not yet been confirmed. Benzimidazole resistance is primarily linked to single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the β-tubulin isotype-1 gene; however, the β-tubulin genes of U. stenocephala have not been fully characterised. We aimed to identify β-tubulin genes and confirm the coding sequences for key residues (Q134, F167, E198, and F200) in the β-tubulin isotype-1 gene of the U. stenocephala genome. Two U. stenocephala specimens were subjected to Illumina sequencing, and species identity was confirmed through morphological and molecular analysis using ITS rDNA and cox-1 markers. Genome assembly revealed the presence of β-tubulin isotype-1 (10 exons) and isotype-2 (9 exons), both homologous to β-tubulins from other hookworms ( A. caninum , A. ceylanicum , A. duodenale and Necator americanus ). The β-tubulin isotype-1 protein sequence of U. stenocephala contained two variable residues (S37Q and G441A) compared to other hookworm sequences. While the isotype-2 protein sequence was conserved among Ancylostoma species, U. stenocephala exhibited six distinct polymorphisms (E39D, T40S, N115S, L130I, A287S, T439G). The benzimidazole-susceptible residues (Q134, F167, E198, F200) were present in the β-tubulin isotype-1 protein sequence. Characterisation of the complete coding regions of β-tubulin isotypes 1 and 2 enables population-level screening for benzimidazole resistance-associated SNPs and provides a foundation for future epidemiological studies in U. stenocephala . Highlights β-tubulin isotypes-1 and -2 were fully characterised in Uncinaria stenocephala Key benzimidazole-susceptible residues were confirmed in β-tubulin isotype-1 β-tubulin isotypes-1 and -2 enables SNP screening and resistance surveillance efforts Abstract Figure
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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 | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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".