Prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in Myocastor coypus in a protected Italian wetland

Abstract

BackgroundToxoplasma gondii is the causative agent for a major zoonosis with cosmopolitan distribution. Water has been implicated in outbreaks of toxoplasmosis in recent years. Coypus (Myocastor coypus), commonly nutria, are large semi-aquatic invasive rodents, naturalized throughout European countries, including most wetlands of Central Italy. The habitat of these animals is both terrestrial and aquatic, making them a species highly exposed to the parasite.FindingsThe occurrence of the infection was evaluated using a modified agglutination test (MAT) in 74 adult coypus from a naturalized population living in a wetland of Central Italy. Nested PCR (n-PCR) assay was carried out on some of them. Positive T. gondii MAT results were found in 44 animals (59·4%), 30 males (68·2%) and 14 females (31·8%). Antibody titers were ranging from 20 to 40960, while 12 out of 23 (52·2%), examined animals, 8 males (66·7%) and 4 females (33·3%), resulted positive to n-PCR. All n-PCR positive animals were seropositive, showing antibody titers ranging from 640 to 40960.ConclusionsOur results indicate that examined animals are heavily parasitized with Toxoplasma. This suggests that coypus could be a reservoir of this parasite, because they can be eaten both by scavenger animals and by humans, and that these animals would play a role in maintaining the cycle of T. gondii.

Sequence variation in the Toxoplasma gondii eIF4A gene among strains from different hosts and geographical locations

“…Toxoplasma gondii is an important zoonotic protozoan with a global distribution infecting virtually all warm-blooded animals, including humans (Montoya and Liesenfeld, 2004;Nardoni et al, 2011;Zhou et al, 2011;Chen et al, 2012;Tian et al, 2012). Normally, infections in humans are asymptomatic or sub-clinical, although they can cause severe diseases in immunocompromised individuals, such as congenitally infected individuals, AIDS patients, and those with tumors or recovering from transplantation operations (Weiss and Dubey, 2009).…”

The Life Cycle of Toxoplasma gondii in the Natural Environment

“…On the same way, nutria Myocastor coypus is a terrestrial herbivorous but can also eat small insects that can disseminate oocysts and mussels, which can accumulate oocysts [106,107,108]. Nutria and wild boar are thus particularly exposed to infection by T. gondii [109,110]. Besides being potential source of T. gondii for scavengers, they constitute relevant species to monitor the burden of oocysts in the wild environment and to study factors associated with the dynamic of T. gondii infection.…”

Parasitic and Bacterial Infections of Myocastor coypus in a Metropolitan Area of Northwestern Italy

“…Information on diseases affecting coypus in Italy is insufficient (e.g., Bollo et al 2003;Nardoni et al 2011). We performed a population health survey in the metropolitan area of Milan (northwestern Italy) to determine the prevalence of selected parasitic and bacterial infections of veterinary and zoonotic importance.…”