Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in wild kangaroos using an ELISA

Abstract

Infection with Toxoplasma gondii is a significant problem in Australian marsupials, and can lead to devastating disease and predispose animals to predation. T. gondii infection in kangaroos is also of public health significance due to the kangaroo meat trade. A moderate seroprevalence of T. gondii was observed in a study of western grey kangaroos located in the Perth metropolitan area in Western Australia. Of 219 kangaroos tested, 15.5% (95%CI: 10.7-20.3) were positive for T. gondii antibodies using an ELISA developed to detect T. gondii IgG in macropod marsupials. When compared with the commercially available MAT (modified agglutination test), the ELISA developed was in absolute agreement and yielded a κ coefficient of 1.00. Of 18 kangaroos tested for the presence of T. gondii DNA by PCR, the 9 ELISA positive kangaroos tested PCR positive and the 9 ELISA negative kangaroos tested PCR negative indicating the ELISA protocol was both highly specific and sensitive and correlated 100% with the more labour intensive PCR assay.

Protozoal-related mortalities in endangered Hawaiian monk seals Neomonachus schauinslandi

“…Pathology in most cases was severe and associated with numerous protozoal organisms, similar to observed cases in other mammalian species such as macropods and new world primates deemed highly susceptible to toxoplasmosis (Innes 1997, Parameswaran et al 2009. Steatitis may be emerging as a primary feature of infection in some monk seals given the severity of the inflammation in the adipose tissue and abundance of associated protozoal organisms in recent cases (RB24, RN36), relative to many of the adjacent parenchymal tissues.…”

Evaluation of an indirect ELISA using recombinant granule antigen GRA1, GRA7 and soluble antigens for serodiagnosis of Toxoplasma gondii infection in chickens

“…ELISA has the advantage that it can be automated and is convenient for large-scale epidemiology surveys. Furthermore, it is both highly specific and sensitive in comparison with MAT in chickens (Hamidinejat et al, 2014;Parameswaran et al, 2009).…”

Differential Gamma Interferon- and Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha-Driven Cytokine Response Distinguishes Acute Infection of a Metatherian Host with Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum

“…The Toxo-Screen DA modified agglutination test (MAT) kit (bioMérieux, Marcy l'Etoile, France) was used to detect T. gondii antibodies using sera diluted 1:40 following the manufacturer's instructions. These serological assays have previously been shown to be suitable for use in Australian marsupial species (25,40).…”

“…Even less is known about the effect of N. caninum infection in native marsupials. Seroprevalence surveys in Australian cattle and dogs have established that N. caninum infection may be common in these species, and yet, prevalence studies in native wildlife are lacking (34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40). As a result, the significance of N. caninum as a disease threat for wild populations of marsupials is unknown.…”