Abstract
Little is known about latent infection and molecular characterisation of Neospora caninum in sheep (Ovis aries). In this study, 330 sheep samples (180 hearts and 150 brains) were analysed for N. caninum DNA by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting the Nc-5 gene. Neospora caninum DNA was detected in 3.9% (13/330) of sheep samples. The parasite’s DNA was detected in 6.7% of heart samples (12/180) and 0.7% (1/150) of brain samples. No clinical signs were recorded from infected or uninfected animals. Sequencing of the genomic DNA revealed 96% – 99% similarity with each other and 95.15% – 100% similarity with N. caninum sequences deposited in GenBank. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the use of PCR to identify latent neosporosis in sheep in Iran. The results of this study have the potential to contribute to our understanding of the role of N. caninum-infected sheep in the epidemiology of neosporosis.
Highlights
Neospora caninum is a worldwide protozoan having a variety of animal hosts (Dubey & Schares 2011; Dubey, Schares & Ortega-Mora 2007)
The results demonstrated our sequences shared 96% – 99% similarity with each other (Figures 2 and 3) and 95% – 100% similarity with N. caninum deposited in GenBank (Appendix Figure 1)
Phylogenetic trees showed intraspecific variations between our isolates and other N. caninum specimens deposited in GenBank (Figure 2)
Summary
Neospora caninum is a worldwide protozoan having a variety of animal hosts (Dubey & Schares 2011; Dubey, Schares & Ortega-Mora 2007). Domestic and wild canids are definitive, whereas different bird and mammalian species (such as cattle, water buffalo, and sheep) serve as intermediate hosts (Dubey & Schares 2011). Antibodies to N. caninum have been detected in 1.1% – 8.3% of sheep in the west of Iran (Ezatpour et al 2015; Gharekhani & Heidari 2014), 27.7% in Pakistan (Nasir et al 2012), 2.1% in Turkey (Gökçe et al 2015), 10.3% in China (Liu et al 2015), 16.8% in Greece (Anastasia et al 2013), 3% in Argentina (Hecker et al 2013), and 13.1% in south-eastern Brazil (Da Silva Andrade et al 2012). There is little information describing the detection of nucleic acids resulting from latent neosporosis in sheep
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