Title Molecular identification of four Sarcocystis species in cattle from Lithuania, including S. hominis, and development of a rapid molecular detection method :
Authors Prakas, Petras ; Strazdaitė-Žielienė, Živilė ; Januškevičius, Vytautas ; Chiesa, Francesco ; Baranauskaitė, Agnė ; Rudaitytė-Lukošienė, Eglė ; Servienė, Elena ; Petkevičius, Saulius ; Butkauskas, Dalius
DOI 10.1186/s13071-020-04473-9
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Is Part of Parasites & vectors.. London : BioMed Central. 2020, vol. 13, no. 1, 610, p. 1-9.. ISSN 1756-3305
Keywords [eng] 18S rRNA gene ; Cattle ; Molecular identification ; Sarcocystis hominis ; Trypsin digestion ; cox1
Abstract [eng] Background: Six Sarcocystis species are known to use cattle (Bos taurus) as the intermediate host, two of which, S. hominis and S. heydorni, are zoonotic. There is a need for a method that will enable rapid identification of the Sarcocystis species in cattle. Methods: The diaphragm muscles of 102 cattle from Lithuania were examined for the presence of Sarcocystis spp., using two different methods for species identification. Individual sarcocysts were isolated from squash preparations of the diaphragm muscle under the light microscope, followed by genetic characterisation of excised cysts using sequence analysis of the 18S rRNA (18S rRNA) and cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (cox1) genes. The same cattle muscle samples were digested and species-specific PCR analyses targeting cox1 were developed to identify the Sarcocystis isolates to the species level. Results: Under the light microscope, sarcocysts were detected in 87.3% of animals, and Sarcocystis infection was verified in all digested samples. Three species, namely S. cruzi (n = 20), S. bovifelis (n = 23) and S. hirsuta (n = 6), were identified by DNA sequence analysis of isolated sarcocysts. Based on sequence analysis of cox1, the level of genetic variability depended on Sarcocystis species and geographical location. Four Sarcocystis species, S. cruzi (96.1%), S. bovifelis (71.6%), S. hirsuta (30.4%) and S. hominis (13.7%), were confirmed in the digested samples. In individual samples, the most common finding was two species of Sarcocystis (44.1%), followed by three species (26.5%), a single species (24.5%) and four species (4.9%). Conclusions: Although examination of tissue preparations under the light microscrope did not detect any sarcocysts belonging to S. hominis, this species was identified in the digested samples subjected to a cox1-specific PCR analysis. These results demonstrate the need for effective molecular diagnosis techniques to detect Sarcocystis spp., which may be present at a lower preval.
Published London : BioMed Central
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2020
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