Enzyme polymorphism in Schistosoma mattheei from cattle in the Eastern Transvaal Lowveld.

Enzyme electrophoresis was conducted on 10 Schistosoma mattheei adult worm samples, comprising 270 individuals, collected from cattle in the Eastern Transvaal Lowveld. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) was studied in all the samples and phosphoglucomutase (PGM) and malate dehydrogenase (MDH) in five populations each. Only one population was polymorphic for G6PDH. In this population, in addition to the allele found in all the other samples, a second allele occurred with a similar Rf value to S. haematobium. The two alleles were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. MDH-1 exhibited two alleles. However, these alleles were not in equilibrium. In certain populations, heterozygotes occurred together with homozygotes of one of the alleles only. PGM was monomorphic in all the populations studied.