A multinested PCR for detection of the equine piroplasmids Babesia caballi and Theileria equi

Occurrence and Genetic Diversity of Babesia caballi and Theileria equi in Chilean Thoroughbred Racing Horses

“…The higher prevalence of T. equi when compared to B. caballi is in accordance with the findings of other authors [42][43][44], which can be attributed to the lifelong persistence of T. equi infection, compared with the effective elimination of B. caballi [6,45]. Interestingly, the Club Hípico de Concepción had a higher molecular prevalence of these agents (B. caballi [47]. The higher occurrence of equine piroplasmids in the Club Hípico de Concepción might be related to an infection cluster caused by the management of horses (favoring transmission) and their origin (favoring the introduction of asymptomatic carriers), resulting in high numbers of asymptomatic animals [48].…”

“…Interestingly, the Club Hípico de Concepción had a higher molecular prevalence of these agents (B. caballi [12.5%], T. equi [75.4%], co-infection [10.1%]) than the other two Chilean racecourses. This racecourse showed a similar occurrence of EP to that found in research in Cuba [46], and Spain (B. caballi [29.4%], T. equi [66%], co-infection [22.6%]) [47]. The higher occurrence of equine piroplasmids in the Club Hípico de Concepción might be related to an infection cluster caused by the management of horses (favoring transmission) and their origin (favoring the introduction of asymptomatic carriers), resulting in high numbers of asymptomatic animals [48].…”

Phylogenetic analysis and geographical distribution of Theileria equi and Babesia caballi sequences from horses residing in Spain

“…Although equi merozoite antigen (EMA-1), rhoptry associated protein (RAP-1), β-tubulin and mitochondrial cytochrome B (cytB) genes have been targeted by PCR to diagnose EP (Battsetseg et al, 2002;Montes Cortes et al, 2019;Nicolaiewsky et al, 2001), the 18S SSU rRNA gene is the most appropriate target for piroplasm identification and genetic variation analysis, primarily due to a level of sequence conservation that allows meaningful phylogenetic comparisons, and the occurrence of multiple copies within the genome (Allsopp and Allsopp, 2006;Hunfeld et al, 2008). Early studies of EP phylogeny based on this gene initially identified only two genotypes for both equine piroplasms (Nagore et al, 2004).…”

Twenty Years of Equine Piroplasmosis Research: Global Distribution, Molecular Diagnosis, and Phylogeny

“…These methods can also be designed to distinguish between parasite species or genotypes. Currently, these methods are more often used for research than in clinical practice [2,3,5,20,68,[85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92]. Numerous assays targeting one or multiple EP parasites, including conventional PCR [86,87], nested PCR (nPCR) [90,93], real-time PCR (rtPCR) [82,[94][95][96][97][98][99], multiplex PCR (mPCR) [87,89], reverse line blot (RLB) [100,101], and loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) [85,88,91], have been developed.…”