Abstract
BackgroundToxoplasmosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a widespread protozoan in the phylum Apicomplexa. In Europe, several studies have demonstrated the presence of the parasite in tissues of wild boars (Sus scrofa), but no data exists on the T. gondii load in tissues which in turn may be an useful way to assess the infection risk for the consumer of wild boar meat.MethodsWe sampled and tested a total of 472 tissue samples of brain, heart and masseter muscle from 177 wild boars from the Campania region of southern Italy by real-time PCR analyses for detection and quantification of T. gondii. The sensitivity and specificity of the method were calculated by ROC analysis curves.ResultsPCR analysis revealed the presence of T. gondii in tissue samples of 78 out of 177 (44%) wild boars. In general, the brain presented the highest PCR prevalence (31%), followed by the heart (28.3%) and the masseter muscle (24.2%), with the highest estimated parasite numbers observed in the brain followed by the heart and masseter muscle. The PCR method showed an excellent discriminating ability for each of the examined tissues. According to the ROC analysis curves, the respective sensitivity and specificity were 99 and 100% for masseter muscle, 98 and 98% for brain and 96 and 98% for heart samples.ConclusionsThe high prevalence of infection here detected suggests a widespread distribution of the parasite in the wildlife of the Campania region of southern Italy. The T. gondii burdens detected may potentially represent a source of infection for humans.
Highlights
Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a widespread protozoan in the phylum Apicomplexa
PCR analysis revealed the presence of T. gondii in the tissues of 78 out of 177 (44%) wild boars; 36 wild boars tested positive in a single tissue, 31 tested positive in two tissues and 11 tested positive in three tissues
Because we studied wild boars collected in the wild, the source of the Regarding the parasite load among the different tissues, it has been observed in experimental studies using rodents and livestock animals that the parasite load may vary depending on time since infection, with a significantly higher parasite load occurring in the brain, liver and blood only at the onset, and with the parasite load in the heart and skeletal muscles increasing over time [19, 22]
Summary
Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a widespread protozoan in the phylum Apicomplexa. In Europe, several studies have demonstrated the presence of the parasite in tissues of wild boars (Sus scrofa), but no data exists on the T. gondii load in tissues which in turn may be an useful way to assess the infection risk for the consumer of wild boar meat. A few studies have demonstrated the presence of T. gondii in different tissues of wild boars by PCR qualitative methods (positive/negative) [10,11,12], but no data exists on the quantification of parasite burden in its tissues which, in turn, may be a useful way to assess the infection risk for the consumer [13]. This is the first time that the occurrence and parasite load of T. gondii in tissues of wild boars has been reported using a specific and sensitive real-time PCR assay
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