Molecular and Morphological Characterization of Eimeria crandallis Isolated from Deer (Cervidae) in Different Captive Animals

Abstract

Coccidiosis is a protozoan disease that is characterized by diffuse diarrhea, dehydration, emaciation accompanied by moderate morbidity and mild mortality in animals and birds. The current study targeted the molecular characterization of Eimeria isolates in captive deer from different localities in Lahore. The host species was the Cervidae family, such as Hog deer (Axis porcinus) and Punjab urial (Ovis aries vignei). The Eimeria crandallis was isolated from zoo animals. The DNA was extracted from oocysts and amplified by using reported oligonucleotide primers that exhibited the 809 bp product. These were analyzed by using the small subunit 18S rRNA gene-based evolutionary relationship with 36 other Eimeria species reported in caprine, cervinae, bovines, avians, and rodents. Light microscopic examination exhibited 3.29% (7/213) Eimeria-positive fecal samples with morphological features, including sub-spherical forms, the presence of micropyle with polar cap, and oocysts diameters (μm) ranging from 24.32 ± 1.61 to 18.94 ± 1.51. The phylogenetic tree constitutes four distinct clusters with relatively higher values. The evolutionary network showed that sequences were clustered in the monophyletic group of Eimeria species reported in caprine and cervinae. The nucleotide and amino acid sequence similarity matrix analysis exhibited 99.5–99.9% identity of the study isolates with Eimeria crandallis (AF336339). This study provides relevant baseline data to develop strategic control measures for coccidiosis in zoo animals. However, further investigations are required to place the hog deer and Punjab urial-derived E. crandallis into the caprine-originated cluster.

Comprehensive molecular characterization of complete mitogenome assemblies of 33 Eimeria isolates infecting domestic chickens

“…Notably, E. maxima and E. mitis were more closely related to each other than to E. praecox and E. acervulina , in contrast with findings based on the nuclear 18S and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and mitochondrial cox 1 datasets [ 53 , 55 – 57 ]. Nevertheless, these analyses provided a consistent, robust phylogenetic resolution for the 33 isolates and their congeneric species in the genus Eimeria : a paraphyletic relationship was shared among the 10 chicken Eimeria species, in agreement with our genetic distance study herein and the results of morphological and molecular biology studies [ 6 , 56 , 58 – 60 ].

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Identification of sheep eimerian parasites, Eimeria crandallis and Eimeria faurei, employing microscopic and molecular tools

“…The E. crandallis oocysts was the most common species in affected sheep with high infection rate, which agreed with previous reports (Bakunzi et al, 2010; Hassanen, 2020; Kaufmann, 1996; Kheirandish et al, 2012; Rommel, 2000, p. 19), while, E. faurei oocysts were detected in low intensity (Gómez‐Bautista et al, 1996). However, the ellipsoidal shape of E. crandallis oocysts is different from those described by Ayana et al (2022) and Mohamed et al (2022) for spherical oocysts, Hafeez et al (2022) and Shaheed and Al‐Aziz (2023) for subspherical oocysts. Moreover, variations in the size of oocysts (length and width) were observed, which is a common issue for Eimeria species within the same species which might be related to several factors including host and parasite metabolism as described by Long and Joyner (1984).…”