Abstract

Giardia duodenalis is a zoonotic parasitic protist and poses a threat to human and animal health. This study investigated the occurrence of G. duodenalis infection in post-weaned calves from Sichuan province, China. Faecal samples were collected from a total of 306 post-weaned calves (3–12 months old) from 10 farms, including 4 intensive feeding farms and 6 free-ranging farms. The overall infection rate of G. duodenalis was 41.2% (126/306) based on the PCR results at any of the three genetic loci: beta-giardin (bg), triose-phosphate isomerase (tpi) and glutamate dehydrogenase (gdh) genes. Giardia duodenalis assemblages E (n = 115, 91.3%), A (n = 3, 2.4%), and A mixed with E (n = 8, 6.3%) were identified among the 126 positive specimens. Multilocus sequence typing of G. duodenalis revealed 34 assemblage E multilocus genotypes (MLGs), 1 assemblage A MLG and 7 mixed assemblage (A and E) MLGs. The eBURST data showed a high degree of genetic diversity within assemblage E MLGs. The phylogenetic tree revealed that MLG E3 was the primary MLG subtype in Sichuan province and also the most widely distributed in China.

Highlights

  • Giardia is one of the most common parasitic protists that infects both humans and animals, poses a considerable threat to human and animal health globally [1, 2]

  • Based on the PCR results at any of the 3 genetic loci, 126 (41.2%) of the 306 faecal specimens tested positive for G. duodenalis, which was similar to the occurrence in Hubei (37.8%, 28/74) [16], but much higher than the majority of provinces in China

  • multilocus genotypes (MLGs) E3 is the primary founder of clonal complex 1, which is consistent with the results found in Shanghai [28]

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Summary

Introduction

Giardia is one of the most common parasitic protists that infects both humans and animals, poses a considerable threat to human and animal health globally [1, 2]. Among the six species of Giardia, only Giardia duodenalis can infect humans and animals (domestic, farmed and wild animals) [3, 4]. The life cycle of Giardia is relatively simple; involving two developmental stages of rapid multiplying trophozoites and infectious cysts, transmitted via the faecal-oral route (i.e., faeces, contaminated water or food) [1, 5]. Humans and animals infected with Giardia usually show symptoms such as diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, weight loss, malabsorption or recessive infections without obvious clinical symptoms [5, 6].

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