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The first isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from horses in Serbia

BACKGROUND: Consumption of undercooked or insufficiently cured meat is a major risk factor for human infection with Toxoplasma gondii. Although horsemeat is typically consumed rare or undercooked, information on the risk of T. gondii from infected horse meat to humans is scarce. Here, we present the...

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Autores principales: Klun, Ivana, Uzelac, Aleksandra, Villena, Isabelle, Mercier, Aurélien, Bobić, Branko, Nikolić, Aleksandra, Rajnpreht, Irena, Opsteegh, Marieke, Aubert, Dominique, Blaga, Radu, van der Giessen, Joke, Djurković-Djaković, Olgica
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5379513/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28376902
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2104-x
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author Klun, Ivana
Uzelac, Aleksandra
Villena, Isabelle
Mercier, Aurélien
Bobić, Branko
Nikolić, Aleksandra
Rajnpreht, Irena
Opsteegh, Marieke
Aubert, Dominique
Blaga, Radu
van der Giessen, Joke
Djurković-Djaković, Olgica
author_facet Klun, Ivana
Uzelac, Aleksandra
Villena, Isabelle
Mercier, Aurélien
Bobić, Branko
Nikolić, Aleksandra
Rajnpreht, Irena
Opsteegh, Marieke
Aubert, Dominique
Blaga, Radu
van der Giessen, Joke
Djurković-Djaković, Olgica
author_sort Klun, Ivana
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Consumption of undercooked or insufficiently cured meat is a major risk factor for human infection with Toxoplasma gondii. Although horsemeat is typically consumed rare or undercooked, information on the risk of T. gondii from infected horse meat to humans is scarce. Here, we present the results of a study to determine the presence of T. gondii infection in slaughter horses in Serbia, and to attempt to isolate viable parasites. METHODS: The study included horses from all regions of Serbia slaughtered at two abattoirs between June 2013 and June 2015. Blood sera were tested for the presence of specific IgG T. gondii antibodies by the modified agglutination test (MAT), and samples of trypsin-digested heart tissue were bioassayed in mice. Cyst-positive mouse brain homogenates were subjected to DNA extraction and T. gondii strains were genotyped using 15 microsatellite markers (MS). RESULTS: A total of 105 slaughter horses were sampled. At the 1:6 cut-off 48.6% of the examined horses were seropositive, with the highest titre being 1:400. Viable parasites were isolated from two grade type mares; both parasite isolates (RS-Eq39 and RS-Eq40) were T. gondii type III, and both displayed an increased lethality for mice with successive passages. These are the first cases of isolation of T. gondii from horses in Serbia. When compared with a worldwide collection of 61 type III and type III-like strains, isolate RS-Eq39 showed a combination of MS lengths similar to a strain isolated from a duck in Iran, and isolate RS-Eq40 was identical in all markers to three strains isolated from a goat from Gabon, a sheep from France and a pig from Portugal. Interestingly, the source horses were one seronegative and one weakly seropositive. CONCLUSIONS: The isolation of viable T. gondii parasites from slaughter horses points to horsemeat as a potential source of human infection, but the fact that viable parasites were isolated from horses with only a serological trace of T. gondii infection presents further evidence that serology may not be adequate to assess the risk of toxoplasmosis from horsemeat consumption. Presence of T. gondii type III in Serbia sheds more light into the potential origin of this archetypal lineage in Europe. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-017-2104-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-53795132017-04-07 The first isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from horses in Serbia Klun, Ivana Uzelac, Aleksandra Villena, Isabelle Mercier, Aurélien Bobić, Branko Nikolić, Aleksandra Rajnpreht, Irena Opsteegh, Marieke Aubert, Dominique Blaga, Radu van der Giessen, Joke Djurković-Djaković, Olgica Parasit Vectors Research BACKGROUND: Consumption of undercooked or insufficiently cured meat is a major risk factor for human infection with Toxoplasma gondii. Although horsemeat is typically consumed rare or undercooked, information on the risk of T. gondii from infected horse meat to humans is scarce. Here, we present the results of a study to determine the presence of T. gondii infection in slaughter horses in Serbia, and to attempt to isolate viable parasites. METHODS: The study included horses from all regions of Serbia slaughtered at two abattoirs between June 2013 and June 2015. Blood sera were tested for the presence of specific IgG T. gondii antibodies by the modified agglutination test (MAT), and samples of trypsin-digested heart tissue were bioassayed in mice. Cyst-positive mouse brain homogenates were subjected to DNA extraction and T. gondii strains were genotyped using 15 microsatellite markers (MS). RESULTS: A total of 105 slaughter horses were sampled. At the 1:6 cut-off 48.6% of the examined horses were seropositive, with the highest titre being 1:400. Viable parasites were isolated from two grade type mares; both parasite isolates (RS-Eq39 and RS-Eq40) were T. gondii type III, and both displayed an increased lethality for mice with successive passages. These are the first cases of isolation of T. gondii from horses in Serbia. When compared with a worldwide collection of 61 type III and type III-like strains, isolate RS-Eq39 showed a combination of MS lengths similar to a strain isolated from a duck in Iran, and isolate RS-Eq40 was identical in all markers to three strains isolated from a goat from Gabon, a sheep from France and a pig from Portugal. Interestingly, the source horses were one seronegative and one weakly seropositive. CONCLUSIONS: The isolation of viable T. gondii parasites from slaughter horses points to horsemeat as a potential source of human infection, but the fact that viable parasites were isolated from horses with only a serological trace of T. gondii infection presents further evidence that serology may not be adequate to assess the risk of toxoplasmosis from horsemeat consumption. Presence of T. gondii type III in Serbia sheds more light into the potential origin of this archetypal lineage in Europe. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-017-2104-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-04-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5379513/ /pubmed/28376902 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2104-x Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Klun, Ivana
Uzelac, Aleksandra
Villena, Isabelle
Mercier, Aurélien
Bobić, Branko
Nikolić, Aleksandra
Rajnpreht, Irena
Opsteegh, Marieke
Aubert, Dominique
Blaga, Radu
van der Giessen, Joke
Djurković-Djaković, Olgica
The first isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from horses in Serbia
title The first isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from horses in Serbia
title_full The first isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from horses in Serbia
title_fullStr The first isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from horses in Serbia
title_full_unstemmed The first isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from horses in Serbia
title_short The first isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from horses in Serbia
title_sort first isolation and molecular characterization of toxoplasma gondii from horses in serbia
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5379513/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28376902
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2104-x
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