| Congresso Brasileiro de Microbiologia 2023 | Resumo: 320-2 | ||||
Resumo:Infectious abortion in cattle herds is a problem found worldwide with a low diagnosis rate, leading to significant losses of animals and consequently economic losses for countries. Protozoan infections associated to abortion such as Toxoplasma gondii are among the main causes of abortion in ruminants. Toxoplasma gondii is an obligatory intracellular parasite of the phylum Apicomplexa that usually infects warm-blooded animals and is already widely distributed worldwide, with a wide variety of animals and humans as hosts. Toxoplasmosis is considered a zoonosis, and it is one of the main causes of foodborne illness in humans and is also responsible for infectious abortion in ruminants through vertical transmission, which causes congenital infection through the placenta Due to the lack of data, we aimed to investigate the occurrence of T. gondii abortion in cattle. The molecular tests were done in abort fetuses, (brain, heart, lung, liver, kidney, spleen and thymus were subjected to extraction of genomic material and molecular tests for BHV-1, Brucella abortus, Neospora caninum, BVD and Campylobacter sp. The test for the detection of the agent in the samples was based on the quantitative PCR test (qPCR), based on oligonucleotides from B1 region. A total of 156 aborted bovine fetuses were collected, of which three samples were considered positive in PCR, Sample 1 showed 476 copies/mg, sample 2 showed 148 copies/mg, and sample 3 showed 16 copies/mg. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of bovine abortion caused by T. gondii in Brazil. It is important to note that the animals in which the agents were found were Holstein cows, which are used for milk production. It is quite common on dairy farms in Brazil to raise cats alongside cows, so the definitive host of the parasite, for the most part, shares the same location as the dairy cattle. In addition, other studies have also found T. gondii antibodies in various wild animals, among which it is important to highlight Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, mainly as a protozoan reservoir, since this animal is present in large numbers in the state and can play an important epidemiological role in contaminating the herd’s animals. in this study, since the fetuses aborted at a younger fetal age presented a much higher parasite load compared to abortion in the 2nd trimester, indicating a greater ability of the fetus to eliminate the infecting protozoa. This work has shown that circulating Toxoplasma gondii in Brazil, which has antibodies in a large number of cattle, is also capable of causing abortion in these animals. Palavras-chave: Toxoplasma gondii, qPCR, Abortion, Bovine Agência de fomento:Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) e Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) | |||||