Prevalence of <i>Toxoplasma gondii</i> in Dogs in Zhanjiang, Southern China

Abstract

Toxoplasmosis, caused by Toxoplasma gondii, is a parasitic zoonosis with worldwide distribution. The present study investigated the prevalence of T. gondii in dogs in Zhanjiang city, southern China, using both serological and molecular detection. A total of 364 serum samples and 432 liver tissue samples were collected from the slaughter house between December 2012 and January 2013 and were examined for T. gondii IgG antibody by ELISA and T. gondii DNA by semi-nested PCR based on B1 gene, respectively. The overall seroprevalence of T. gondii IgG antibody was 51.9%, and T. gondii DNA was detected in 37 of 432 (8.6%) liver tissue samples. These positive DNA samples were analyzed by PCR-RFLP at 3'- and 5'-SAG2. Only 8 samples gave the PCR-RFLP data, and they were all classified as type I, which may suggest that the T. gondii isolates from dogs in Zhanjiang city may represent type I or type I variant. This study revealed the high prevalence of T. gondii infection in dogs in Zhanjiang city, southern China. Integrated measures should be taken to prevent and control toxoplasmosis in dogs in this area for public health concern.

Toxoplasma gondii Triggers Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Release in Dogs

“…It may cause asymptomatic infection or severe symptomatic infection including developmental defects, early embryonic death, stillbirth, or abortion to T. gondii-infected pregnancies (Dubey and Jones, 2008;Dubey and Dubey, 2010;Pan et al, 2017). Dogs are the intermediate hosts, and multiple studies have demonstrated the prevalence of T. gondii in dogs in a variety of countries or areas worldwide (Jiang et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2015;Dubey et al, 2016;Rengifo-Herrera et al, 2017;Zarra-Nezhad et al, 2017). Although these serological surveys and diagnosis analysis of dogs infected T. gondii have been reported, the interactions between the host dog and the parasite T. gondii remain not fully understood.…”

Seroprevalence and B1 gene Phylogeny of Toxoplasma gondii of Dogs and Cats in Republic of Korea

“…Therefore, these countries of highly antigen prevalence might be contaminated with Toxoplasma gondii in the environment, and then the warm-blood mammals including humans could be infected more easily by environmental and food contaminated T. gondii. In China, which showed high antigen-positive rates in cats, the rate of dog antigens was also relatively high, ranging from 3.7% to 8.6% [9,14]. In this study, antigen prevalence of T. gondii of domestic and stray dogs and cats in South Korea was very low as much as that of Japan.…”

“…The seroprevalence of stray dogs in Japan was lower than that of Korea [8], and consequently the environmental contamination of T. gondii is likely lower in Japan than in Korea. The seroprevalence of T. gondii in dogs in China ranged from 21% to 51.9% and 69.8% in Brazil [9,14,31,32]. Therefore, the environmental toxoplasma contamination of these countries as well as the rate of cat toxoplasmosis infection, is expected to be very high.…”

“…Further new targets for phylogenetic analysis were needed to differentiate Type I and Type III clearly. According to a report from China [9], the results of genetic analysis of the dog-derived toxoplasma strains all showed high similarity to the pathogenic Type I strain. On the other hand, in Korea, the result of genetic analysis of two strains reported by Jung et al [23] was corresponded to the group of low virulent Type II.…”

“…Toxoplasmosis can occur in all warm-blooded animals, and the feces of the infected cats are a prominent source of transmission [4,5]. Moreover, dogs have recently been identified as positive carrier of T. gondii via antigen and antibody tests, and mechanical transmission through dogs has therefore emerged as a growing concern [6][7][8][9].…”