Isolation and genotyping of viable Toxoplasma gondii from sheep and goats in Ethiopia destined for human consumption

Abstract

BackgroundToxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular protozoan parasite that infects humans and a broad spectrum of warm-blooded vertebrates. The present study was undertaken with the objectives of isolation and determining the genotypes of T. gondii strains from sheep and goats slaughtered in East and West Shewa Zones of Oromia Regional State, Central Ethiopia.MethodsHearts of 47 sheep and 44 goats that were seropositive in the Direct Agglutination Test (DAT) were bioassayed in mice. A multiplex PCR assay with 15 microsatellite markers was employed for genotyping of T. gondii isolates from sheep and goats.ResultsViable T. gondii were isolated from 47 (51.65%) animals, 27 sheep and 20 goats. Most isolates caused sub-clinical infections in mice, however, 2 sheep and 1 goat isolates were mouse-virulent, killing mice between 19–27 days post-inoculation. The success of T. gondii isolation in mice increased significantly (P = 0.0001) with higher DAT antibody titers in sheep and goats. Genotyping revealed that 29 (87.88%) of the 33 isolates were Type II, 3 (9.09%) were Type III and 1 (3.03%) was atypical. Three strains (one type II, one type III, and the atypical genotype) were virulent for mice.ConclusionsT. gondii tissue cysts in sheep and goats slaughtered for human consumption are widespread. This is the first report on isolation and genotyping of T. gondii from sheep and goats of Ethiopia.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1756-3305-7-425) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

1995–2015: it is time to Celebrate 20 years of (intensive) Genotyping of Toxoplasma Gondii Strains

“…What about sub-Saharan Africa? Only two countries, Ethiopia and Gabon, were significantly sampled [8][9][10], which is unrepresentative of this immense, complex, and diverse continent. I will end this section on knowledge gaps with the biggest ocean on earth, the Pacific Ocean, and its myriad of islands.…”

“…Furthermore, type I may be occasionally sampled in humans or animals in Colombia, Brazil and China [4], however, one wonders whether this genotype still exists in North America and Europe since it has not been described there in the past 20 years. Type III strains have a wider geographic distribution than type II strains because they were easily collected from areas where type II is common, such as North America, Europe, Egypt and Ethiopia, but also from areas where type II is rare, such as tropical America and Gabon [4,7,9,10]. Based on a significant sample of strains from France, it is not true that the frequency of type III strains is higher in animals than in humans [13][14][15].…”

Investigation of Toxoplasma gondii Infection in Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Patients of the Isfahan Province

“…About 38 strains of T. gondii have been isolated from different hosts around the world, amongst them, 10 strains have been pathogenic with basically the same genotype (9). Toxoplasma gondii has three genetic lineages namely; type 1, 2 and 3, type 2 being more common in human infections (10). It can cause opportunistic infections in humans and animals, yet in immunocompetent individuals almost all infections are asymptomatic infections.…”

Estudios serológicos, biológicos y moleculares de Toxoplasma gondii y su relación con la transmisión transplacentaria en infecciones naturales en cabras

“…En cabras, los primeros aislamientos de T. gondii fueron obtenidos en Brasil por Spósito Filha et al (1983) desde diafragmas de 3 de 95 cabras, y más tarde por Cavalcante et al (2007) desde corazón de 2 de 169 cabras y por Ragozo et al (2009) desde pools de cerebro, corazón, masetero y diafragma de 12 de 143 cabras destinadas a consumo humano. En los últimos años también se obtuvieron aislamientos a partir de tejidos de cabras destinadas a consumo en distintos países (Clementino Andrade et al, 2013;Gebremedhin et al, 2014a;Kalambhe et al, 2017;Kyan et al;2012;Paştiu et al, 2015;Rêgo et al, 2017;Satbidge et al, 2016). Otros aislamientos se obtuvieron a partir de abortos caprinos (de Oliveira et al, 2018;Silva Filho et al, 2008).…”