On the host specificity and genetic diversity of Iodamoeba bütschlii: Observations from short amplicon-based next-generation sequencing

Iodamoeba is a single-celled intestinal parasite, which is common in humans in certain parts of the world, and also in pigs. For the first time, we provide DNA-based evidence of goat, dromedary, fallow deer, and donkey as hosts of Iodamoeba and show that Iodamoeba-specific nucleotide sequences from these four hosts do not appear to overlap with those of humans, unlike those from pigs. We moreover show that similar strains of Iodamoeba can be found in Madagascar, Western Sahara, and Ecuador and that intra-sample diversity is typically extensive across even small fragments of DNA in both human and non-human hosts.