Troglostrongylus brevior: a new parasite for Romania

Abstract

BackgroundThe genus Troglostrongylus includes nematodes infecting domestic and wild felids. Troglostrongylus brevior was described six decades ago in Palestine and subsequently reported in some European countries (Italy, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, and Bosnia and Herzegovina). As the diagnosis by the first-stage larvae (L1) may be challenging, there is a possibility of confusion with Aelurostrongylus abstrusus. Hence, the knowledge on the distribution of this neglected feline parasite is still scarce. The present paper reports the first case of T. brevior infection in Romania. In July 2017, a road-killed juvenile male Felis silvestris, was found in in Covasna County, Romania. A full necropsy was performed and the nematodes were collected from the trachea and bronchioles. Parasites were sexed and identified to species level, based on morphometrical features. A classical Baermann method was performed on the lungs and the faeces to collect the metastrongyloid larvae. Genomic DNA was extracted from an adult female nematode. Molecular identification was accomplished with a PCR assay targeting the ITS2 of the rRNA gene.ResultsTwo males and one female nematodes were found in the trachea and bronchioles. They were morphologically and molecularly identified as T. brevior. The first-stage larvae (L1) recovered from the lung tissue and faeces were morphologically consistent with those of T. brevior. No other pulmonary nematodes were identified and no gross pulmonary lesions were observed.ConclusionsThis paper represents the first report of Troglostrongylus brevior infection in Romania, so far representing the second northernmost location for this genus in Europe. The diversity of species infecting wild and domestic felids and the differences regarding the clinical significance of these nematodes highlight the need for a more intense surveillance and proper diagnosis of feline lungworm infections, especially in countries where more species were demonstrated to be present. Furthermore, an increased awareness between clinicians is needed for a correct diagnostic approach to feline lungworm diagnosis.

Who let the cats out? A global meta-analysis on risk of parasitic infection in indoor versus outdoor domestic cats (Felis catus)

“…The publication bias analysis estimated six missing studies on the left side of the funnel plot (figure 2a,b) and incorporation of these randomly created studies using the trim and fill technique still resulted in the effect of outdoor access as a significant risk factor (2.39 OR; p , 0.0001). Troglostrongylus brevior European wild cat [45] royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsbl Biol. Lett.…”

Felid Cardiopulmonary Nematodes: Dilemmas Solved and New Questions Posed

“…Other features cast a shadow over T. subcrenatus. Morphological differences between adult T. subcrenatus and T. brevior are practically restricted to female parasite size, with T. subcrenatus described as bigger than T. brevior [2], while male T. subcrenatus and T. brevior have overlapping features in a number of descriptions [12,23,54]. The most recent comparative analysis [2], showed only negligible differences between these two species.…”

“…Troglostrongylus brevior has been sporadically reported in touristic spots where wildcats are absent or undetected (blue triangles) [1,6,7]. Green triangles indicate reports of Troglostrongylus brevior in wildcats [23][24][25][26][27][28]; areas where the nematode has been not found in absence [29][30][31][32][33] or presence [16] of wildcats are indicated by red and blue circles, respectively.…”

“…Thus far, T. brevior has been described in domestic cats from Southern and Eastern Europe [1,2,7,16,19] and the Middle East [20,21,54]. It has been also recorded in wildcats from Germany [27], Italy [25,28], Greece [24,26], Romania [23] and in a Eurasian lynx from Bosnia and Herzegovina [89], but never in domestic cats from Central and Northern Europe (Figure 1).…”

Efficacy of a topical combination of eprinomectin, praziquantel, fipronil and (S)-methoprene against developing and adult Troglostrongylus brevior lungworms (Nematoda, Crenosomatidae) in cats

“…Recently, a pair of T. brevior was isolated from a cat co-infected with Aelurostrongylus abstrusus in Albania (Knaus and Vokshi; unpublished), and the recovery of T. brevior larvae from the feces of one cat in Poland was reported ( Szcepaniak et al, 2019 ). In addition, there were new records of T. brevior in wildcats from Italy ( Beraldo et al, 2014 , Falsone et al, 2014 , Veronesi et al, 2016 ), Germany ( Steeb, 2015 ) and Romania ( Deak et al, 2017 ). Interestingly, Ibragimova and Rzajev (2017) recently reported the recovery of T. brevior from herding dogs and stray dogs in Azerbaijan.…”