Elsevier

Experimental Parasitology

Volume 170, November 2016, Pages 161-167
Experimental Parasitology

Full length article
Trichomonas gallinae: Prevalence and molecular characterization from pigeons in Minoufiya governorate, Egypt

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exppara.2016.09.016Get rights and content

Highlights

  • T. gallinae was detected in pigeons from four cities of Minoufiya province, Egypt.

  • The sequence is highly identical to sequences from USA, Austria, Canada, and Spain.

  • The Egyptian sequence of T. gallinae is of genotype A.

Abstract

Trichomonas gallinae infects the upper digestive tract of pigeons. It is transmitted from mother to young squabs by feeding crop milk. Generally, infection resulted in severe mortalities in young birds. In this study, we examined 3315 pigeons of different ages from the Minoufiya governorate for the clinical infection by T. gallinae. The infection was confirmed in infected birds by microscopical examination of oral swabs, histopathological examination, and PCR of the ITS1/5.8S/ITS2 gene. The prevalence was 63 (1.9%). The parasite was found in 35 (2.04%) from Ashmoun, 15 (1.66%) from Minoof, 8 (1.6%) from Quesna, and 5 (2.5%) from El-Shohada birds. The infection was mainly detected in squabs 60 (1.8%). The sequence of T. gallinae ITS1/5.8S/ITS2 gene from Egypt has high nucleotide sequence identity (up to100%) to T. gallinae from pigeon of USA, Austria, Canada, and Spain. The sequence belongs to genotype B of T. gallinae. Histopathological examination presented the parasites in crop, liver, larynx, and trachea as poorly eosinophilic bodies with severe inflammatory cell infiltration. This is the first study to present the prevalence and genotype of T. gallinae from Minoufiya governorate, Egypt.

Introduction

Trichomonas gallinae, a flagellated protozoan parasite with an ovoid to pyriform morphology, infects pigeons all over the world (Amin et al., 2014). It infects the upper digestive tract of birds and lesions vary from mild ulceration of the mucosa to large caseous masses (Borji et al., 2011). Although the majority of infections are subclinical (Amin et al., 2014) the disease resulted in high mortality rates, especially in squabs (Robinson et al., 2010). Pigeons are orally exposed to T. gallinae trophozoites through contaminated food or water, during courtship via billing, or when nestlings are fed crop milk from infected parents (Stabler, 1947). The infection of pigeons with T. gallinae was reported in several countries such as Mauritius (Gaspar da Silva et al., 2007), Spain (Martinez-Herrero et al., 2014, Sansano-Maestre et al., 2009), Austria and the Czech Republic (Grabensteiner et al., 2010), Seychelles (Bunbury, 2011), Iran (Nematollahi et al., 2012), Australia (McKeon et al., 1997), Germany (Stenkat et al., 2013), Slovenia (Dovc et al., 2004), United States (Girard et al., 2014), Brazil (Ecco et al., 2012), and Switzerland (Schreiber et al., 2015). There were few studies on T. gallinae in pigeon from Egypt and they were mainly concerned with the pathology and treatment of the infected pigeons (Abd El-Rahman et al., 2008, Mohamed et al., 2009, Seddiek et al., 2014). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to study the prevalence of T. gallinae in some cities of Minoufiya governorate, Egypt and molecular characterization of the parasite by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).

Section snippets

Birds and study area

A total number of 3315 pigeons of various ages (≤1-≥12 months) were clinically inspected for trichomomonosis from March 2015–February 2016. The analyzed birds were 1715 from Ashmoun, 900 from Minoof, 500 from El-Shouhada, and 200 from Quesna cites, Minoufiya governorate, Egypt.

Microscopical examination of Trichomonas gallinae

Swabs were taken from the oral cavity and crop of pigeons showing oral lesions and were blended with Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS) and were spread on glass slides. At that point, the slides were fixed with methanol and

Prevalence of T. gallinae

Pigeons from four cities of Minoufiya governorate, Egypt were examined for the presence of T. gallinae. The total number of infected birds was 63 (1.9%). The parasite was found in 35 (2.04%) from Ashmoun, 15 (1.66%) from Minoof, 8 (1.6%) from Quesna, and 5 (2.5%) from El-Shohada birds (Table 1). Concerning the age of the examined pigeons, the parasite was detected in 32 (2.13%) at ≤1, 18 (1.9%) at 2, 10 (1.83%) at 4, and 3 (0.85%) at ≥12 months (Table 2). The infection was mainly detected in 60

Discussion

T. gallinae was clinically detected in 1.9% of the examined birds which is lower than prevalence in pigeons from Seychelles 47.1% (Bunbury, 2011), from Spain 15% (Seddiek et al., 2014), 4.9% (Martinez-Herrero et al., 2014), 34.2% (Mohamed et al., 2009), and 44.8% (Sansano-Maestre et al., 2009), from Iran 57% (Nematollahi et al., 2012), from Slovenia 7.9% (Dovc et al., 2004), from Australia 59% (McKeon et al., 1997), from United States 36% (Girard et al., 2014), and from Germany 24% (Stenkat

Acknowledgments

We thank the farmers and farm owners at the villages of different cities in Minoufiya governorate, Egypt for their kind cooperation.

References (25)

  • R.S. Felleisen

    Comparative sequence analysis of 5.8S rRNA genes and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of trichomonadid protozoa

    Parasitology

    (1997)
  • N.D. Levine

    Veterinary Protozology

    (1985)
  • Cited by (16)

    • Prevalence and molecular characterization of Trichomonas gallinae from pigeons in Anhui, China

      2024, Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
    • Identification of new drug candidates against Trichomonas gallinae using high-throughput screening

      2023, International Journal for Parasitology: Drugs and Drug Resistance
    • Infection rate and biochemical characterization of Cysticercus tenuicollis from sheep in Minoufiya governorate, Egypt

      2020, Veterinary Parasitology: Regional Studies and Reports
      Citation Excerpt :

      The aspartate aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels were assessed utilizing suitable kits (Spectrum diagnostics, Hannover, Germany). DNA was extracted as previously described (El-Khatam et al., 2016) with few modifications. The cyst was evacuated and the cyst tissues were cut, ground, and used in the DNA extraction.

    • Prevalence and molecular characterization of Trichomonas gallinae from domestic pigeons in Beijing, China

      2018, Infection, Genetics and Evolution
      Citation Excerpt :

      Unlike in Shandong province, China, where the highest infection rate was detected in adolescent pigeons and the lowest infection rate was found in nestling group (Jiang et al., 2016), the present study showed that the prevalence of T. gallinae in nestling pigeons was significantly higher than adolescent pigeons. This result was consistent with the previous studies from South Khorasan in Iran and from Minoufiya in Egypt, where the infection rates between nestling pigeons and adolescent pigeons were 93.18% vs 31.03% (Radfar et al., 2012) and 2.13% vs 1.87% (El-Khatam et al., 2016), respectively. The higher prevalence in nestling pigeons probably owing to some reasons: First, the nestlings are fed crop milk from infected adults.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    1

    The authors have equal participation.

    View full text