BackgroundEquine piroplasmosis (EP) caused by Theileria equi, Babesia caballi, or both, contributes to significant economic loss in the equine industry and remains uncontrolled in Egypt. This study focuses on surveying T. equi and B. caballi infections and hematological disorders in equine populations in Egypt.MethodsTheileria equi and B. caballi infections were assessed in blood from 88 horses and 51 donkeys in Egypt using light microscopy, indirect immunofluorescent antibody test (IFAT), nested PCR (nPCR), and competitive-ELISA (cELISA) assays. PCR products were examined for specificity by DNA sequencing. Hematological alterations were evaluated using a standard cell counter.ResultsMicroscopic analysis revealed EP infection in 11.4 % and 17.8 % of horses and donkeys respectively. IFAT detected 23.9 % and 17.0 % infection of T. equi and B. caballi, respectively, in horses, and 31.4 % of T. equi and B. caballi in donkeys. T. equi cELISA detected 14.8 % and 23.5 % positive horses and donkeys, respectively, but the B. caballi RAP-1-based cELISA failed to detect any positives, a result hypothesized to be caused by sequence polymorphism found in the rap-1 genes. Nested-PCR analysis identified 36.4 % and 43.1 % positive horses and donkeys, respectively for T. equi and it also identified 19.3 % and 15.7 % positive horses and donkeys, respectively for B. caballi. The overall EP incidence found in the population under study was relatively high and comparable regardless of the diagnostic method used (56.8 % using nPCR and 48.9 % using IFAT). Hematologic analysis revealed macrocytic hypochromic anemia and thrombocytopenia in all piroplasma-infected horses.ConclusionsThe data confirm relatively high levels of EP, likely causing hematological abnormalities in equines in Egypt, and also suggest the need for an improved serological test to diagnose B. caballi infection in this region.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-016-1539-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Variation in the ovine prion protein amino acid sequence influences scrapie progression, with sheep homozygous for A 136 R 154 Q 171 considered susceptible. This study examined the association of survival time of scrapie-exposed ARQ sheep with variation elsewhere in the ovine prion gene. Four single nucleotide polymorphism alleles were associated with prolonged survival. One nonsynonymous allele (T112) was associated with an additional 687 days of survival for scrapie-exposed sheep compared to M112 sheep (odds ratio, 42.5; P ‫؍‬ 0.00014). The only two sheep homozygous for T112 (TARQ) did not develop scrapie, suggesting that the allelic effect may be additive. These results provide evidence that TARQ sheep are genetically resistant to development of classical scrapie.

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Four-week-old Harlan A/J mice were orally infected with six epidemic and six environmental strains of Listeria monocytogenes. Epidemic strains were significantly more invasive as a group than were environmental strains (P < 0.05), and the intestines of some mice infected with epidemic strains had extensive hemorrhage. Mice inoculated with epidemic strains were significantly more likely to become systemically infected than mice inoculated with environmental strains (P < 0.01).Listeria monocytogenes is a food-borne bacterial pathogen that can cause severe disease and high mortality in humans and animals (27). Although most epidemics are caused by L. monocytogenes serotype 4b, serotype 1/2a is the most common serotype isolated from food (4). This implies different virulence potential according to serotype. Other factors that may affect infectivity are the infective dose, survival of the bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, and host immunity (15,27). Penetration of the intestinal barrier is the primary step for the infection (16), and subsequent invasion of organs such as the liver and spleen are also critical for establishing a systemic infection (27). Therefore, it is important to determine the ability of L. monocytogenes strains to penetrate the intestinal mucosa and invade organs by using an in vivo model to assess invasiveness.L. monocytogenes infection elicits a comparable innate and acquired cellular immune response in humans and rodents; therefore, the murine model of L. monocytogenes infection has been widely used (1). Most previous mouse models used to assess strain invasiveness used intraperitoneal or intravenous inoculation of immunocompetent or immunocompromised mice (9,23,24,26). However, most human infections are acquired orally, and these models do not address survival and translocation in the gut. Furthermore, studies describing intragastric infection of mice or guinea pigs required relatively high numbers of bacteria (10 9 CFU) (2,3,16,18,26). Recently, an A/J mouse model in which intragastric inoculation was used was described by Czuprynski et al. (6). It was found that 6-to 8-week-old A/J mice develop systemic infection following intragastric inoculation by using numbers of organisms similar to what is detected in L. monocytogenescontaminated food products. However, only two strains (Scott A and EGD) were tested (6), and sodium pentobarbital was used for anesthesia, which was later shown to increase susceptibility to infection (7). Therefore, it is important to test the efficacy of this model by using more strains and an alternative means of anesthesia.Mice. A previous study (22) tested NCR mice of various ages to assess the effect of mouse weight on the L. monocytogenes infection and demonstrated that smaller mice were more sensitive to oral infection and further suggested the use of 14-to 15-g mice (approximately 4 weeks old) for L. monocytogenes infection. Therefore, 4-week-old A/J mice (Harlan SpragueDawley, Indianapolis, Ind.) were used in this study (average weight, 14.1 Ϯ 1.6 g). Mice w...

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Anaplasma marginale genomic DNA was tested for the presence of repetitive extragenic palindromic (REP) and enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC)-like sequences in order to evaluate the genetic diversity of multiple A. marginale isolates. A. marginale isolates were obtained from cattle of six different states of Brazil, from the US and an Anaplasma centrale strain was obtained from Uruguay. Patterns obtained from A. marginale isolates varied from 14 to 17 fragments by REP-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and 6 to 14 fragments by ERIC-PCR. All A. marginale isolates presented a 0.75-kb fragment by REP and two common fragments (0.38 and 1.0 kb) by ERIC-PCR. These two fragments were not detectable in A. centrale. Both methods produced similar patterns (80%) among A. marginale isolates obtained from the same region, although some isolates within regions shared less similarity. Isolates from Parana and Pernambuco, were differentiated by these methods. The study demonstrates the presence of ERIC and REP-like elements in A. marginale isolates and shows that A. marginale isolates and strains can be differentiated by these methods.