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Abstract

Nephridiophagids are unicellular eukaryotes that parasitize the
Malpighian tubules of numerous insects. Their life cycle comprises
multinucleate vegetative plasmodia that divide into oligonucleate and
uninucleate cells, and sporogonial plasmodia that form uninucleate
spores. Nephridiophagids are poor in morphological characteristics, and
although they have been tentatively identified as early-branching fungi
based on the SSU rRNA gene sequences of three species, their exact
position within the fungal tree of live remained unclear. In this study,
we describe two new species of nephridiophagids (Nephridiophaga postici
and Nephridiophaga javanicae) from cockroaches. Using long-read
sequencing of the nearly complete rDNA operon of numerous further
species obtained from cockroaches and earwigs to improve the resolution
of the phylogenetic analysis, we found a robust affiliation of
nephridiophagids with the Chytridiomycota-a group of zoosporic fungi
that comprises parasites of diverse host taxa, such as microphytes,
plants, and amphibians. The presence of the same nephridiophagid species
in two only distantly related cockroaches indicates that their host
specificity is not as strict as generally assumed.