Multilocus Genotyping of Giardia duodenalis in Dairy Cattle in Henan, China

Abstract

Giardia duodenalis is a common and widespread intestinal protozoan parasite of both humans and animals. Previous epidemiological and molecular studies have identified Giardia infections in different animals and humans, but only limited information is available about the occurrence and genotypes of Giardia in cattle in China. In this study, we determined the occurrence of giardiasis and genetically characterized G. duodenalis in dairy cattle in Henan Province, central China. The overall prevalence of G. duodenalis was 7.2% (128/1777) on microscopic analysis, with the highest infection rate (22.7%) in calves aged less than 1 month. G. duodenalis assemblages and subtypes were identified with multilocus genotyping based on the SSU rRNA, β-giardin (bg), glutamate dehydrogenase (gdh), and triosephosphate isomerase (tpi) genes. Two assemblages were detected in the successfully sequenced samples: assemblage A (n = 58), assemblage E (n = 21), with a mixed E and A assemblage (n = 2). Four novel subtypes of the gdh gene and seven of the bg gene were found among the G. duodenalis assemblage E isolates. Using the nomenclature for the multilocus genotype (MLG) model, nine novel multilocus genotypes E (MLGs E1–E9) and three MLGs A (a novel subtype AI, previously detected subtype AII-1, and a combination of both) were identified. MLG AII-1 identified in this study may be an important zoonotic subtype. The dairy cattle in Henan are a potential public health concern.

Giardia duodenalis Infection in Dairy Cattle of Assam, India

“…In a recent study from Al-Qadisiya, Iraq, Ahmed and A'aiz (2015) reported 85.71% infection in calves ($ 1year) with a significant difference (p#0.05) with calves (< 6 months) and calves (6 months to 1 year). Higher prevalence in younger animals is also in accordance with the findings of Ehsan et al (2015) and Wang et al (2014) from Bangladesh and China, respectively who reported 22 and 22.7% infections in calves, respectively. Due to decreased level of acquired immunity in younger animals they become more susceptible to infections (Reinemeyer, 1995).…”

First report of zoonotic Cryptosporidium spp., Giardia intestinalis and Enterocytozoon bieneusi in golden takins (Budorcas taxicolor bedfordi)

“…The subtype E3 has been reported in dairy cattle in China (KF843943, Wang et al, 2014a,b), sheep (JF792419, unpublished paper) and goats (EU189354, Ruiz et al, 2008) in Spain. Seven new subtypes showed respective single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) compared with the assemblage E (KF843945, Wang et al, 2014a) from cattle in China (Table 5). There were six SNPs at the bg locus, forming three new subtypes (E8, E9, E10) and the subtype E3 reported in goats in Belgium (EU642899, Geurden et al, 2008), in cattle in Italy (AY545650, Lalle et al, 2005) and China (KF843934, Wang et al, 2014a).…”

Prevalence and Molecular Characterization of Giardia duodenalis in Calves in Turkey

“…However, the genetic structure of Giardia has been shown to be more complex than thought before by recent molecular studies [28,40]. Multilocus genotyping of the beta-giardin, SSU rRNA, glutamate dehydrogenase and triosephosphate isomerase loci have allowed to identify sub-assemblages [40,42]. Following this improvement, sub-assemblages obtained from animal and human samples were compared and results showed that the most of the infections were not sharing identical genotypes between animal and human [4, 28,40].…”

“…Assemblage E is considered to be livestock specific and reported as most prevalent assemblage in cattle [12,29,37]. However mono or mixed infections with assemblage A [15,17,31,42,43] or assemblage B [9,26] were reported in cattle from different countries Additionally, infection with more unexpected assemblages such as C, D and F were also detected in United Kingdom [33] and Spain [6] in cattle.…”

“…The number of studies related with the prevalence and molecular characterization of giardiosis in cattle is increasing [9,19,29,42,43]. However, only limited data is available about the epidemiology of G. duodenalis in dairy cattle from Turkey.…”