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Giardia duodenalis sub-Assemblage of animal and human origin in horses
Donato Traversa1, Domenico Otranto, Piermarino Milillo
1Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Teramo, Italy. dtraversa@unite.it
Abstract:
In order to evaluate infection occurrence and the potential zoonotic role of horse isolates of Giardia duodenalis, 431 individual fecal samples were genetically characterized by PCR tests -coupled sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. Thirty-seven (8.6%) animals resulted infected by different Assemblage. The presence of sub-Assemblage was assessed by characterizing the β-giardin gene for 16 of the 37 positive horses. Ten isolates showed 99.6% to 100% homology with the sub-Assemblage described as B1-2 and B1-6, three Assemblage A showed 99.8% homology with sub-Assemblage A1, while one Assemblage E displayed 98.8% homology with sub-Assemblage E3. Furthermore, one isolate characterized as Assemblage A showed 99.6% homology with the sub-Assemblage B1-2 and one characterized as E was 100% identical with sub-Assemblage B1-6. These results demonstrate the presence of both animal and human sub-Assemblage of G. duodenalis in horses from Italy. Epidemiological and sanitary implications are discussed.
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