Abstract

Doc number: 558

Abstract

Background: Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular protozoan parasite that infects a wide variety of warm-blooded hosts, including humans. Limited information about T. gondii infection in bats is available in China. The objective of the present study was to determine prevalence and genetic characterization of T. gondii infection in bats in Jilin, Liaoning, Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces, China.

Methods: During May 2005 to August 2013, bats were sampled from Jilin, Liaoning, Jiangxi, and Guangdong provinces, China, and liver tissues were collected for the detection of T. gondii by a nested PCR targeting the B1 gene. The positive samples were genotyped at 11 genetic markers (SAG1, 5[variant prime]-and 3[variant prime]-SAG2, alternative SAG2, SAG3, BTUB, GRA6, L358, PK1, c22-8, c29-2, and Apico) using multilocus polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP).

Results: A total of 626 bats representing 10 species were examined for T. gondii infection, 38 (6.1%) were tested positive with by PCR, 8 positive DNA samples were completely genotyped, of which 3 samples (2 from Cynopterus sphinx , and 1 from Murina leucogaster ) represented ToxoDB#10, and 5 samples (2 from Murina leucogaster , 2 from Myotis chinensis , and 1 from Rhinolophus ferrumequinum ) belonged to ToxoDB#9 (http://toxodb.org/toxo/ ).

Conclusions: The present study revealed an overall T. gondii prevalence of 6.1% in bats from Jilin, Liaoning, Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces in China, and reported two T. gondii genotypes (ToxoDB#9 and #10) having a wide geographical distribution in China. These results provide new genetic information about T. gondii infection in bats, and have implications for better understanding of the genetic diversity of T. gondii in China and elsewhere.

Details

Title
Molecular detection and genotypic characterization of Toxoplasma gondii infection in bats in four provinces of China
Author
Qin, Si-Yuan; Cong, Wei; Liu, Ye; Li, Nan; Wang, Ze-Dong; Zhang, Fu-Kai; Huang, Si-Yang; Zhu, Xing-Quan; Liu, Quan
Publication year
2014
Publication date
2014
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
1756-3305
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1635745371
Copyright
© 2014 Qin et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. 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.