Impact of urbanization on the transmission of Toxoplasma gondii

• Grant number: 15/23605-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: December 01, 2015
• End date: August 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine - Preventive Veterinary Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Solange Maria Gennari
• Grantee: Herbert Sousa Soares
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 15/11530-6 - Epidemiologycal aspects of Toxoplasma gondii from domestic and wild animals from Amazon fauna, AP.TEM

Abstract

The present project aims to study the epidemiological aspects of Toxoplasma gondii and other parasites from Sarcocystidae family from the Amazon region of Brazil. The Sarcocystidae family is divided into three subfamilies: Sarcocystinae, Cystoisosporinae and Toxoplasmatinae, the latter being a subfamily with few species grouped in the genera Toxoplasma, Neospora, Hammondia and Besnoitia, and it is the most important parasites in animal and human health. Among these coccidian's stand out the T. gondii due its zoonotic importance, the agent of the most common infections of man, birds and mammals. There is great interest in molecular studies of genotypes of T. gondii from animals and humans, to assess the correlation found between the isolates and their biological properties, as well as track down epidemiologically the agent to identify sources of infection and routes of transmission. The techniques of molecular epidemiology have been of great importance in these studies and through them an extremely limited genetic diversity was observed in samples from the northern hemisphere and other regions of the world. However, studies with isolates from Brazil showed that they are biologically and genetically different from those in North America and Europe, with high pathogenicity and high diversity. There are studies showing that T. gondii isolates from the Amazon region of Guyana, causing a different and very severe clinical picture in humans. Recent studies also point to a unique phylogenetic branch of T. gondii in Amazon. Despite the relatively high number of isolates genotyped already in Brazil, they are still insufficient findings in studies of population genetics that would assist in explaining these differences, and the northern region of the country, were most of the Amazon biome is located, there is a lack of information. Thus, this project aims to isolate T. gondii from different localities and animal species for studies and genotyping of T. gondii isolates with different biological patterns and genotypic genome. When the search for T. gondii in tissue samples from animals other coccidian related to it will certainly be obtained, and these will also be analyzed with molecular methods and will provide information of great importance to the study of coccidian, particularly in wildlife in Brazil for which such information is nonexistent.