Genetic characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from cats in Yunnan Province, Southwestern China

Particle and Fibre Toxicology

Feng-Cai Zou¹  Xing-Quan Zhu²  Chunlei Su³  Jian-Fa Yang⁴  Hai-Hai Jiang²  Qiang Miao²  Si-Yang Huang²  Yi-Ming Tian² 

[1] School of Life Sciences, Yunnan University, 650091 Kunming, Yunnan Province, PR China;State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Etiological Biology, Key Laboratory of Veterinary Parasitology of Gansu Province, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 730046 Lanzhou, Gansu Province, PR China;Department of Microbiology, The University of Tennessee, 37996 Knoxville, TN, USA;College of Animal Science and Technology, Yunnan Agricultural University, 650201 Kunming, Yunnan Province, PR China

关键词: Yunnan;    Multilocus PCR-RFLP;    Genetic characterization;    Cats;    Toxoplasma gondii;   

Others  :  807285
DOI  :  10.1186/1756-3305-7-178

 received in 2014-02-26, accepted in 2014-04-09,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Cats are the definitive hosts of Toxoplasma gondii. The distribution of genetic diversity of T. gondii in cats is of importance to understand the transmission of this parasite. The objective of this study was to genetically characterize T. gondii isolates from cats in Yunnan province, southwestern China.

Methods

Genomic DNA was extracted from 5–10 g cat tissue samples (brain, tongue, heart, and liver). Using multilocous polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technology, we determined genetic diversity of T. gondii isolates from cats in Yunnan province.

Result

In total, 175 stray cats were tested for T. gondii DNA, respectively, 44 (25.14%) of which were found to be positive for the T. gondii B1 gene by PCR amplification. The positive DNA samples were typed at 11 genetic markers, including 10 nuclear markers, namely, SAG1, 5'-3'SAG2, alternative SAG2, SAG3, GRA6, L358, PK1, BTUB, c22-8, c29-2 and an apicoplast locus Apico. Of these, 16 isolates from cats were genotyped with data for more than 9 loci, revealed 5 genotypes in total, of which 11 of 16 samples were identified as ToxoDB#9, two samples may belong to genotye #225, one was Type II, one was ToxoDB#3, and one was ToxoDB#20 (http://toxodb.org/toxo/ webcite).

Conclusions

The results of the present study indicated a wide distribution of T. gondii infection in cats in Yunnan province, which may pose significant public health concerns. To our knowledge, the present study is the first report of T. gondii prevalence and genotypes in cats in southwestern China, and the first report of Type II T. gondii from cats in China.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Tian et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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