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Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load

BACKGROUND: Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a widespread protozoan in the phylum Apicomplexa. In Europe, several studies have demonstrated the presence of the parasite in tissues of wild boars (Sus scrofa), but no data exists on the T. gondii load in tissue...

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Autores principales: Santoro, Mario, Viscardi, Maurizio, Sgroi, Giovanni, DʼAlessio, Nicola, Veneziano, Vincenzo, Pellicano, Roberta, Brunetti, Roberta, Fusco, Giovanna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31277688
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-019-3586-5
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author Santoro, Mario
Viscardi, Maurizio
Sgroi, Giovanni
DʼAlessio, Nicola
Veneziano, Vincenzo
Pellicano, Roberta
Brunetti, Roberta
Fusco, Giovanna
author_facet Santoro, Mario
Viscardi, Maurizio
Sgroi, Giovanni
DʼAlessio, Nicola
Veneziano, Vincenzo
Pellicano, Roberta
Brunetti, Roberta
Fusco, Giovanna
author_sort Santoro, Mario
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a widespread protozoan in the phylum Apicomplexa. In Europe, several studies have demonstrated the presence of the parasite in tissues of wild boars (Sus scrofa), but no data exists on the T. gondii load in tissues which in turn may be an useful way to assess the infection risk for the consumer of wild boar meat. METHODS: We sampled and tested a total of 472 tissue samples of brain, heart and masseter muscle from 177 wild boars from the Campania region of southern Italy by real-time PCR analyses for detection and quantification of T. gondii. The sensitivity and specificity of the method were calculated by ROC analysis curves. RESULTS: PCR analysis revealed the presence of T. gondii in tissue samples of 78 out of 177 (44%) wild boars. In general, the brain presented the highest PCR prevalence (31%), followed by the heart (28.3%) and the masseter muscle (24.2%), with the highest estimated parasite numbers observed in the brain followed by the heart and masseter muscle. The PCR method showed an excellent discriminating ability for each of the examined tissues. According to the ROC analysis curves, the respective sensitivity and specificity were 99 and 100% for masseter muscle, 98 and 98% for brain and 96 and 98% for heart samples. CONCLUSIONS: The high prevalence of infection here detected suggests a widespread distribution of the parasite in the wildlife of the Campania region of southern Italy. The T. gondii burdens detected may potentially represent a source of infection for humans.
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spelling pubmed-66109502019-07-16 Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load Santoro, Mario Viscardi, Maurizio Sgroi, Giovanni DʼAlessio, Nicola Veneziano, Vincenzo Pellicano, Roberta Brunetti, Roberta Fusco, Giovanna Parasit Vectors Research BACKGROUND: Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a widespread protozoan in the phylum Apicomplexa. In Europe, several studies have demonstrated the presence of the parasite in tissues of wild boars (Sus scrofa), but no data exists on the T. gondii load in tissues which in turn may be an useful way to assess the infection risk for the consumer of wild boar meat. METHODS: We sampled and tested a total of 472 tissue samples of brain, heart and masseter muscle from 177 wild boars from the Campania region of southern Italy by real-time PCR analyses for detection and quantification of T. gondii. The sensitivity and specificity of the method were calculated by ROC analysis curves. RESULTS: PCR analysis revealed the presence of T. gondii in tissue samples of 78 out of 177 (44%) wild boars. In general, the brain presented the highest PCR prevalence (31%), followed by the heart (28.3%) and the masseter muscle (24.2%), with the highest estimated parasite numbers observed in the brain followed by the heart and masseter muscle. The PCR method showed an excellent discriminating ability for each of the examined tissues. According to the ROC analysis curves, the respective sensitivity and specificity were 99 and 100% for masseter muscle, 98 and 98% for brain and 96 and 98% for heart samples. CONCLUSIONS: The high prevalence of infection here detected suggests a widespread distribution of the parasite in the wildlife of the Campania region of southern Italy. The T. gondii burdens detected may potentially represent a source of infection for humans. BioMed Central 2019-07-05 /pmc/articles/PMC6610950/ /pubmed/31277688 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-019-3586-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 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
Santoro, Mario
Viscardi, Maurizio
Sgroi, Giovanni
DʼAlessio, Nicola
Veneziano, Vincenzo
Pellicano, Roberta
Brunetti, Roberta
Fusco, Giovanna
Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load
title Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load
title_full Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load
title_fullStr Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load
title_full_unstemmed Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load
title_short Real-time PCR detection of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from southern Italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load
title_sort real-time pcr detection of toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of wild boars (sus scrofa) from southern italy reveals high prevalence and parasite load
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31277688
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-019-3586-5
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