Neospora caninum in goats from Iraq: A serological and molecular study

Neospora caninum is an Apicomplexa parasite that is an important abortive infectious agent in cattle, goats, and other domestic and wild animals.

This study aimed to identify N. caninum using Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in suspected goats in Al-Diwaniyah Province, Iraq.

This study was conducted to identify N. caninum in blood and milk samples of 138 goats (92 blood and 46 milk samples) from suspected infected goats in Al-Diwaniyah Province, Iraq. Two techniques were used; ELISA and PCR (NC5-gene-based and partial sequencing), and the recorded data were categorized into age, sex, and region. Results: ELISA results revealed that the seroprevalence rates were 14.13% (13/92) in blood and 21.73% (10/46) in milk samples. The PCR results demonstrated that for the blood samples, 3/45 (6.66%) and 2/47 (4.25%) were positive for males and females, respectively. The PCR milk findings showed that the highest rates were 3/20 (15%) and 1/26 (3.84%) in the 2-4 and 4-6 age groups, respectively. Sequencing demonstrated close identities of the examined isolates to those from New Zealand and Australia for the blood and milk samples.

The findings of this study reveal that N. caninum is widely distributed in goats, which could be an important source of zoonosis in the tested areas. The phylogenetic analysis shows a shared ancestor between the study isolates and those from New Zealand and Australia.