COMPARISON BETWEEN GROWTH MAGNITUDE OF BLASTOCYSTIS GENOTYPES ISOLATED FROM GASTROINTESTINAL SYMPTOMATIC EGYPTIAN PATIENTS

Abstract

Blastocystis presents in healthy and diseased persons so its role in disease development is a subject of debate. This study compared between growth patterns of different symptomatic Blastocystis subtypes. Morphometric measures of the vacuolar form of STs isolated from acute GIT symptomatic patients showed that major diversity in size ranged from 4.928±1.77 among ST4 to 70.54±29.66 among wild ST3. Size in chronic group was 4±0.816 in ST-4 and 40.83±7.359 in heterozygous ST3, and in intermittent group ranged from 5.5±0.707 in ST4 to 47.5±6.45 in heterozygous ST3 with significant differences. Phenotypic variations were commonly among inter-subtypes of ST3. Generation patterns in re-culturing were 24.1% of isolates at 5 th re-culturing and the 29.6% at 6 th re-culturing loss of 90% viable vacuolar form numbers compared to that on first culture. Low percenta ge (9.3%) reached to 9 th re-culture. Majority of ST-1 (40%) was lost at the 5 th re-culture while 58.8% of wild ST-3 was lost in the 7 th & 8 th , respectively, with 29.4% per each. Meanwhile, 66.6% of ST-4 was lost in the 5 th & 6 th , respectively, with 33.3% per each, but without significant difference. As to metronidazole ® susceptibility, the majority of ST1, wild ST3, heterozygous ST3 and ST4 isolates gave 60%, 58.7%, 57.2% & 79.9% sensitivity.