Serologic and Molecular Evaluation of Leishmania infantum in Cats from Central Spain

Abstract

Infection by different Leishmania spp. in cats has been reported in many countries. In Spain, since the first Leishmania infection described in 1933, sporadic clinical cases in cats have been reported. Various serologic studies performed in other areas of Spain have shown seroprevalences ranging between 1.7 and 60%. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of leishmaniasis in cats from Central Spain (Madrid), and to assess the existence of associations between Leishmania infantum infection and relevant data obtained from each cat. Two-hundred thirty-three cats attended at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Madrid between September 2005 and June 2006 were tested for L. infantum using the indirect immunofluorescent antibody (IFA) test (cutoff: 1:100) and PCR. PCR testing was performed on the samples to detect Leishmania infection, targeting the kinetoplast DNA (kDNA). Our results showed a seroprevalence of 1.29% (3/233) using IFA test. Another seven cats were also seroreactive to L. infantum one dilution under the cutoff (1:50). Considering all the seroreactive samples, the percentage of positive animals to L. infantum was 4.29%. Only one of the cats (0.43%) included in the study was PCR-positive. Relative lymphocytosis and an increase in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) value were statistically associated with seroreactivity to L. infantum. Our results demonstrate the presence of cats seroreactive to L. infantum in Central Spain, an endemic area for this disease in dogs.

Seroepidemiology of Toxoplasma gondii, Neospora caninum, and Leishmania spp. infections and risk factors for cats from Brazil

“…Although IFAT has been used in epidemiological studies (Ayllon et al 2008;Poli et al 2002;Vita et al 2005), the positive animals of the present study were not seroreactive by IFAT but by ELISA, results similar to that obtained by Figueiredo et al (2009), who evaluated antibodies anti-Leishmania in 43 cats from Barra Mansa Municipality, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil by the methods IFAT and ELISA and detected only one reactive animal, 2.4% (1/43), by the latter technique only. Bresciani et al (2010) found 0.7% (2/283) of cats positive for Leishmania spp.…”

The first case report of Leishmania (leishmania) chagasi in Panthera leo in Brazil

“…In European countries, the seroprevalence of domestic cats to visceral leishmaniasis in endemic areas varies from 0.9% [6] to 4.29% in Italy [7] , 30.4% in Portugal [8] , 60% in Spain [9] and 6.7% in Jerusalem [10][11][12] . In the southwestern region of Brazil, the seroprevalence for visceral leishmaniasis in this Contents lists available at ScienceDirect was about 25% in domestic cats [13] .…”

“…In the southwestern region of Brazil, the seroprevalence for visceral leishmaniasis in this Contents lists available at ScienceDirect was about 25% in domestic cats [13] . Diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis infection in domestic cats by PCR was described in Brazil [14] and in Italy [7] . However, there is no report of infection of L. chagasi in Panthera leo.…”

Conjunctival swab PCR to detect Leishmania spp. in cats

“…Information regarding leishmaniasis involving felines has been increasing, but there are still many questions to be answered by new studies, especially regarding the pathogenesis and the true role of the cat as a reservoir host for Leishmania spp. (AYLLON et al, 2008). The evidence that there is a transmission of feline parasites to the disease vector was proven by Maroli et al (2007) and Silva et al (2010), by xenodiagnosis in Italy and Brazil, respectively, thus suggesting that cats can be a secondary reservoir host for L. infantum.…”