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Babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats

BACKGROUND: Although reported sporadically from various countries, feline babesiosis appears to be a significant clinical entity only in South Africa, where Babesia felis is usually incriminated as the causative agent. Babesia lengau, recently described from asymptomatic cheetahs, has now possibly b...

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Autores principales: Bosman, Anna-Mari, Oosthuizen, Marinda C, Venter, Estelle H, Steyl, Johan CA, Gous, Tertius A, Penzhorn, Barend L
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652746/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23634743
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-6-128
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author Bosman, Anna-Mari
Oosthuizen, Marinda C
Venter, Estelle H
Steyl, Johan CA
Gous, Tertius A
Penzhorn, Barend L
author_facet Bosman, Anna-Mari
Oosthuizen, Marinda C
Venter, Estelle H
Steyl, Johan CA
Gous, Tertius A
Penzhorn, Barend L
author_sort Bosman, Anna-Mari
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Although reported sporadically from various countries, feline babesiosis appears to be a significant clinical entity only in South Africa, where Babesia felis is usually incriminated as the causative agent. Babesia lengau, recently described from asymptomatic cheetahs, has now possibly been incriminated as the causative agent in two severe clinical cases in domestic cats. FINDINGS: Both cats were euthanised in extremis. While typical feline babesiosis in South Africa is an afebrile disease with a chronic manifestation, there was acute onset of severe clinical signs in both cats and their body temperatures were above the normal range when they were presented for treatment. Haemolytic anaemia was confirmed in one case. To our knowledge, this is the first report of cerebral babesiosis in cats. On reverse line blot 18S rDNA PCR products obtained from both cats showed positive hybridization profiles with the B. lengau species-specific probe. The two partial parasite 18S rRNA gene sequences obtained, showed high sequence similarity (99.9%) to B. lengau. In a representative tree constructed by the neighbor-joining method using the two-parameter model of Kimura the two obtained partial 18S rDNA sequences and that of B. lengau formed a monophyletic group with B. conradae and sequences previously isolated from humans and wildlife in the western USA. CONCLUSION: All clinical cases of feline babesiosis in South Africa are not necessarily caused by B. felis. Other piroplasms, e.g. B. lengau, may be incriminated in clinical cases, especially those occurring outside the known endemic area.
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spelling pubmed-36527462013-05-14 Babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats Bosman, Anna-Mari Oosthuizen, Marinda C Venter, Estelle H Steyl, Johan CA Gous, Tertius A Penzhorn, Barend L Parasit Vectors Short Report BACKGROUND: Although reported sporadically from various countries, feline babesiosis appears to be a significant clinical entity only in South Africa, where Babesia felis is usually incriminated as the causative agent. Babesia lengau, recently described from asymptomatic cheetahs, has now possibly been incriminated as the causative agent in two severe clinical cases in domestic cats. FINDINGS: Both cats were euthanised in extremis. While typical feline babesiosis in South Africa is an afebrile disease with a chronic manifestation, there was acute onset of severe clinical signs in both cats and their body temperatures were above the normal range when they were presented for treatment. Haemolytic anaemia was confirmed in one case. To our knowledge, this is the first report of cerebral babesiosis in cats. On reverse line blot 18S rDNA PCR products obtained from both cats showed positive hybridization profiles with the B. lengau species-specific probe. The two partial parasite 18S rRNA gene sequences obtained, showed high sequence similarity (99.9%) to B. lengau. In a representative tree constructed by the neighbor-joining method using the two-parameter model of Kimura the two obtained partial 18S rDNA sequences and that of B. lengau formed a monophyletic group with B. conradae and sequences previously isolated from humans and wildlife in the western USA. CONCLUSION: All clinical cases of feline babesiosis in South Africa are not necessarily caused by B. felis. Other piroplasms, e.g. B. lengau, may be incriminated in clinical cases, especially those occurring outside the known endemic area. BioMed Central 2013-05-01 /pmc/articles/PMC3652746/ /pubmed/23634743 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-6-128 Text en Copyright © 2013 Bosman et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Short Report
Bosman, Anna-Mari
Oosthuizen, Marinda C
Venter, Estelle H
Steyl, Johan CA
Gous, Tertius A
Penzhorn, Barend L
Babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats
title Babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats
title_full Babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats
title_fullStr Babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats
title_full_unstemmed Babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats
title_short Babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats
title_sort babesia lengau associated with cerebral and haemolytic babesiosis in two domestic cats
topic Short Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652746/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23634743
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-6-128
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