Investigation of IgG Anti Toxoplasma gondii Class Antibodies in Non-human Primates by Modified Agglutination Test (MAT) and Indirect Immunofluorescence Reaction (IFR)

• Grant number: 22/00212-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2022
• End date: March 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine - Preventive Veterinary Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Helio Langoni
• Grantee: Nycolas Octavio Ribeiro Carvalho
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Toxoplasmosis is a disease caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, a pathogen of great zoonotic potential that poses a great risk to public health, being present in animal populations and very often, in the urban environment. The coccidia has three infectious forms: tachyzoites, bradyzoites, and oocysts, infecting homeothermic animals, being facultative heteroxene, and their definitive hosts are cats, responsible for releasing the oocysts through the feces and for maintaining the parasite in the environment. It is known that in immunocompetent animals, the cynical disease is less frequent, being of higher occurrence in immunocompromised animals. However, Neotropical primates are extremely sensitive to infection, in view of the high lethality rate among the species, which can be explained by the fact that they are mostly arboreal. Therefore, they develop the disease only when they come into greater contact with oocysts present in the soil, shed by infected cats. Thus, the presence of infected non-human primates indicates a high dispersion of the agent in the environment. The objective of this work is to evaluate the prevalence of seropositive samples for T. gondii previously collected from animals received and treated at the Center for Wildlife Research and Medicine (CEMPAS) of the School of Veterinary and Animal Science, UNESP-Botucatu, by the Indirect Immunofluorescence Reaction (IFT) and Direct Agglutination Method (DAM) techniques.(AU)