Cerebellar Ataxia Suspected to Be Caused by <i>Oxytropis glabra</i> Poisoning in Western Mongolian Goats

Abstract

In the last five years in western Mongolia, a neurological disorder and resultant economic loss have developed in goats, sheep, cattle and horses: association of the disease with ingestion of Oxytropis glabra, a toxic plant, was suggested. Affected goats showed neurological signs, including ataxia, incoordination, hind limb paresis, fine head tremor and nystagmus. Three goats, one with moderate clinical signs and the other two with severe clinical signs, were necropsied and examined to describe and characterize the histologic, immunohistochemical and ultrastructural lesions. Although no gross pathological changes were observed in a variety of organs including the central nervous system of these goats, microscopic examination of the cerebellum demonstrated degenerative changes in all these goats, such as vacuolar changes and loss of Purkinje cells, torpedo formation in the granular layer, increased number of spheroids in the cerebellar medulla, and loss of axons and myelin sheaths of Purkinje cells. The chemical analysis of the dried plant detected 0.02–0.05% (dry weight basis) of swainsonine. This is the first report describing the clinical and pathological findings in Mongolian goats suspected to be affected by O. glabra poisoning.

Spontaneous poisoning by Sida carpinifolia (Malvaceae) in horses

“…Bergmann's glia is a specialized population of astrocytes that occurs in the Purkinje cell layer of the cerebellum (Cantile & Youssef 2016). The increasing number of Bergmann astrocytes has been described in cases of primary loss of Purkinje cells with secondary depletion of the molecular and granular layers (Mari et al 2014), as well as by other authors in poisonings by plants containing swainsonine as the primary toxin (Armién et al 2011, Takeda et al 2014.…”

Suspected natural lysosomal storage disease from ingestion of pink morning glory (<i>Ipomoea carnea</i>) in goats in northern Argentina

“…There were no significant differences in the clinical findings between the spontaneously poisoned goats of our current study and experimentally poisoned animals [2, 10, 14]. Histopathological evaluation of the intoxicated animals showed a fine vacuolar degeneration of the Purkinje cells in the cerebellum with gliosis.…”

Biological activity evaluations of chemical constituents derived from Mongolian medicinal forage plants and their applications in combating infectious diseases and addressing health problems in humans and livestock

“…Plants have been shown to influence the health of animals through their chemical constituents. For example, some of the genus Oxytropis plants such as Oxytropis glabra are known as toxic plants because they contain an indolizidine alkaloid, swainsonine, which causes lethal neurological disorders [60]. However, although there is no knowledge on the toxic constituent(s) of Oxytropis lanata, the biologically active oxazoles and saponins can be beneficial [32,34].…”