Characterization of the gastrointestinal yeast microbiota of cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus): a potential hazard to human health

Abstract

Cockatiels are the world's second most popular psittacine pet bird, but no data characterizing their gastrointestinal microbiota have been found. Thus, the aim of this work was to characterize the yeast gastrointestinal microbiota of cockatiels and to evaluate the relevance of cockatiels as carriers of potentially pathogenic yeasts. A total of 60 cockatiels, from 15 different premises, were assessed. A thorough clinical examination was performed with each bird, and samples were collected from oral cavity, crop and cloaca. The stools were collected from cages where the birds were kept. The isolates were identified according to morphological and biochemical characteristics. Yeasts were isolated from at least one anatomical site of 65 % of the birds and 64.3 % of the stool samples. The oral cavity (53.3 %) and the crop (58.3 %) were the anatomical sites with the highest prevalence and the highest number of yeast isolates. Overall, 120 yeast isolates, belonging to 13 species, were obtained. The most frequently isolated species were Candida albicans, with 39 (32.5 %) isolates, followed by Candida tropicalis (20 %), Trichosporon asteroides (12.5 %), Candida famata (10 %) and others. Mixed yeast colonies were isolated from 23.3 % of the birds and C. albicans was seldom found in association with other species (P,0.05). The results of this work demonstrated that cockatiels harbour potentially pathogenic yeasts throughout their gastrointestinal tract and in stools, and are prone to disseminating them in the environment.

Evidence of Fluconazole-Resistant Candida Species in Tortoises and Sea Turtles

“…recovered from other healthy animals [6,[8][9][10][11]. Resistance to azoles was observed in C. tropicalis and C. albicans strains, corroborating previous observation of resistance in Candida spp.…”

“…Samples were collected from the oropharynx and cloaca as described in Brilhante et al [11]. Briefly, the swabs were inserted into the anatomical site and rotated, and then placed into sterile glass tubes with sterile saline (0.9 % NaCl) at 4°C until processing.…”

“…Then, they were also assessed for their ability of fermenting and assimilating carbohydrates [12]. In cases of dubious identification, Vitek 2 (bioMérieux, France) was used for yeast identification [11].…”

Biodiversity of Yeasts in the Gastrointestinal Ecosystem with Emphasis on Its Importance for the Host

“…Lund (1974) explored yeasts and moulds in the bovine rumen. Lately, yeasts were also described in the intestinal tract of reptiles (Kostka et al, 1997), birds (Cafarchia et al, 2006;Brilhante et al, 2010;Costa et al, 2010), mice (Scupham et al, 2006), dogs (Brito et al, 2009) and fish (Gatesoupe, 2007). In these studies, the scientists have detected various ascomycetous and basidiomycetous yeasts chiefly representing the genera Candida, Trichosporon, Pichia, Rhodotorula, Debaryomyces, Kluyveromyces and Saccharomyces.…”

Antifungal susceptibility of emerging opportunistic yeasts and yeast-like fungi from Rhea americana

“…They are also occasionally reported as pathogens of domestic animals (Copetti et al 2004;Spanamberg et al 2008), and some studies have shown that small animals, especially birds, are potential sources of these yeasts (Lord et al 2010;Brilhante et al 2010).…”