ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2007
Diverse molecular data demonstrate that commercially available medicinal leeches are not Hirudo medicinalis.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers.
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Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed.
- Circuit-constrained molecular neuroethology in the medicinal leech Hirudo verbana.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Review
- Blood Relatives: Linking Evolutionary History and Conservation of Medicinal Leeches (Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Cryptic Diversity and Impacts of Domestication in the Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) Genome.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Comparative study on the expression levels of antithrombotic genes in five sympatrically distributed leech species.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Predictive Distribution Modeling of the Medicinal LeechEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- The development and application of mini-barcodes from mitochondrial DNA for identifying medicinal leeches from traditional medicines.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Diversity of hirudin and hirudin-like factor genes in the North-African medicinal leech, Hirudo troctina.Parasitology research · 2024Article
- Acceleration of genome rearrangement in clitellate annelids.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Biodiversity of the Buffalo Leeches GenusZoological studies · 2022Article
- A new species of medicinal leech in the genusZooKeys · 2022Article
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- Transcriptional profiling of identified neurons in leech.BMC genomics · 2021Article
- Testing species hypotheses for Fridericia magna, an enchytraeid worm (Annelida: Clitellata) with great mitochondrial variation.BMC evolutionary biology · 2020Article
- The puzzling mitochondrial phylogeography of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens), the commercially most important insect protein species.BMC evolutionary biology · 2020Article
- Bacterial Community of the Digestive Tract of the European Medicinal Leech (Hirudo verbana) from the Danube River.Microbial ecology · 2019Article
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- New specific primers for amplification of the Internal Transcribed Spacer region in Clitellata (Annelida).Ecology and evolution · 2017Article
- Hirudins and hirudin-like factors in Hirudinidae: implications for function and phylogenetic relationships.Parasitology research · 2017Article
- Draft mitochondrial genomes ofMitochondrial DNA. Part B, Resources · 2016Article
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The European medicinal leech is one of vanishingly few animal species with direct application in modern medicine. In addition to the therapeutic potential held by many protease inhibitors purified from leech saliva, and notwithstanding the historical association with quackery, Hirudo medicinalis has been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration as a prescription medical device. Accurate annotation of bioactive compounds relies on precise species determination. Interpretations of developmental and neurophysiological characteristics also presuppose uniformity within a model species used in laboratory settings. Here, we show, with mitochondrial sequences and nuclear microsatellites, that there are at least three species of European medicinal leech, and that leeches marketed as H. medicinalis are actually Hirudo verbana. Beyond the obvious need for reconsideration of decades of biomedical research on this widely used model organism, these findings impact regulatory statutes and raise concerns for the conservation status of European medicinal leeches.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.