The consequences of anthelmintics should not be defined only in
resistance
The issue of drug resistance has been widely mentioned over the past two
decades. Parasites have strong adaptability, and roundworms lay more
than 200,000 eggs per day (Wang & Davis, 2020), which is destined to
have a sufficient mutational basis to resist any environmental changes.
The problem of drug resistance has brought significant economic losses
to industries such as animal husbandry, and the control of parasites has
also become an important expenditure (McKellar & Jackson, 2004). We
found that some resistance-related genes such as β-tubulin ,glc-1 , pgp-3 , mrp-6 , cup-4 , nrf-6 and
CYP family, were significantly selected in different populations. These
genes are respectively related to multiple anthelmintics, which may be
related to their history of deworming. Over time, the gene frequency of
these genes will increase significantly in the population and attention
should be paid to the impact of this selection on species evolution.
Current vaccines offer an attractive alternate control strategy against
these parasites (Hewitson & Maizels, 2014), and also require a huge
investment in early-stage research and development. Despite the wealth
of methods, the response of the parasites was amazing. When we focus on
the issue of drug resistance, we should worry more about the impact of
this strong selection on species evolution. Our results indicated the
influence of human activities on the evolutionary selection ofEquus roundworms, and this influence brings irreversible
parasitic preference. Human anthelmintic medications are nowadays chosen
in a more direct manner than the host’s domestication, and the frequency
of use is more frequent. However, the evolutionary consequences of
short-term multi-generation strong selection are still uncertain. This
suggests that we should be cautious in dealing with the issue of drug
resistance and adopt more scientific strategies.