Vet World Vol.10 November-2017 Article-6
Research Article
Veterinary World, 10(11): 1319-1323
https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2017.1319-1323
High prevalence of small Babesia species in canines of Kerala, South India
2. Department of Veterinary Parasitology, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Mannuthy, Thrissur - 680 651, Kerala, India.
Background and Aim: Canine babesiosis is an important vector-borne hemoparasitic disease caused by Babesia canis vogeli and Babesia gibsoni, in India. The communication places on record the salient findings of the study directed to detect and characterize the pathogenic B. gibsoni isolates of Kerala state.
Materials and Methods: A total of 150 dogs were examined for the presence of hemoparasites by light microscopy as well as by PCR targeting the 18S rRNA gene of B. gibsoni. Hematological parameters were also analysed. Phylogenetic tree was constructed based on Tamura kei model adopting ML method.
Results: A sensitive and specific polymerase chain reaction assay was developed with newly designed primer pair BAGI-F/ BAGI-R for the amplification of 488 bp fragment of 18S rRNA gene of B. gibsoni. Out of the 150 dogs examined, molecular evidence of B. gibsoni was recorded in 47.3% animals, while light microscopy detected the infection in 26.67% cases. The phylogenetic analyses revealed that B. gibsoni, Kerala, isolate was closest and occurred together with Bareilly isolate. Anemia and thrombocytopenia were the significant hematological alterations in chronic B. gibsoni infection.
Conclusion: A high prevalence of natural infection of B. gibsoni was detected among the study population. The affected animals showed anaemia and thrombocytopenia. Phylogenetic analysis of this pathogenic isolate from south India revealed the closest similarity with Bareilly isolates. Keywords: 18S rRNA gene, Babesia gibsoni, dogs, hematology, phylogeny, polymerase chain reaction.
Keywords: 18S rRNA gene, Babesia gibsoni, dogs, hematology, phylogeny, polymerase chain reaction.
How to cite this article: Jain KJ, Lakshmanan B, Syamala K, Praveena JE, Aravindakshan T (2017) High prevalence of small Babesia species in canines of Kerala, South India, Veterinary World, 10(11): 1319-1323.
Received: 25-07-2017 Accepted: 17-10-2017 Published online: 10-11-2017
Corresponding author: Bindu Lakshmanan E-mail: bindul@kvasu.ac.in
DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2017.1319-1323
Copyright: Jain, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.