Abstract
Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan that has great genetic diversity and is prevalent worldwide. In 2018, an outbreak of toxoplasmosis occurred in Santa Maria, Brazil, which was considered the largest outbreak ever described in the world. This paper describes the isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from the placenta of two pregnant women with acute toxoplasmosis who had live births and were receiving treatment for toxoplasmosis during the outbreak. For this, placental tissue samples from two patients underwent isolation by mice bioassay, conventional PCR and genotyping using PCR-RFLP with twelve markers. Both samples were positive in isolation in mice. The isolate was lethal to mice, suggesting high virulence. In addition, the samples were positive in conventional PCR and isolates submitted to PCR-RFLP genotyping presented an atypical genotype, which had never been described before. This research contributes to the elucidation of this great outbreak in Brazil.
Highlights
Toxoplasma gondii is a tissue cyst-forming protozoan capable of infecting warm-blooded animals, including humans, and is prevalent in most parts of the world [1]
The placental tissue samples from two patients who delivered their babies at the University Hospital of Santa Maria during the toxoplasmosis outbreak in 2018, were referred to the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) for diagnostic purposes
Part of the tissue was intended for protozoan isolation, and another part for molecular tests. According to their clinical history, both patients were positive for acute toxoplasmosis through the detection of anti-T. gondii IgM in Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA)
Summary
The objective of this study was to describe the isolation and molecular characterization of T. gondii from the placenta of two pregnant women with acute toxoplasmosis who delivered alive children and were receiving treatment for toxoplasmosis
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