Morphometric Study of Microscopic Cysts of Sarcocystis Sp. in Sheep Carcasses

Abstract

Muscular samples of the oesophagus and diaphragm of 335 sheep collected from the slaughterhouse of El Harrach were analyzed by the histopathological method to describe the morphology of two species of Sarcocystis: S. arieticanis and S. tenella. The cysts were counted and measured with a micrometer for their dimensions. A total of 895 cysts were measured. The width, length, shape index (length/width), the thickness of the wall and the length of the projections were recorded. The thick-walled cysts of S. tenella were 10—450 μm long (the mean ± SD value was 50.35 μm ± 1.380) and 1—110 μm (the mean ± SD value was 27.51 μm ± 0.533) wide. The cyst walls were 0.5—4 μm thick (the mean ± SD value was 1.547 μm ± 0.020) and provided with radial striations. The shape index was 1—14 μm (the mean ± SD value was 1.93 ± 0.045). While in the S. arieticanis, the cyst wall was thin and had long hair-like protrusions, the cysts measured 8—780 μm (the mean ± SD value was 123.13 μm ± 12.799) in length and 5—100 μm (the mean ± SD value was 37.00 μm ± 1.68) in width. The hair-like protrusions reached a length of 3—14 μm (the mean ± SD value was 5.428 ± 0.353) and the shape index was 1—17 μm (the mean ± SD value was 3.10 ± 0.281). For the length, the width and the shape index, the differences were statistically significant between thin-walled cysts and thick-walled cysts. The general structural features of the cysts, previously described by other authors, were confirmed.

A Systematic Meta-Analysis of Global Sarcocystis Infection in Sheep and Goats

“…In the end, only 35 articles were included in this study. Forty sets of data were obtained, including 30 sets on sheep [5,9, and 10 on goats (Figure 2, Tables 1 and 2) [16,17,[36][37][38][41][42][43][44][45]. Meta analysis data can be downloaded from Supplementary Material.…”

“…In the end, only 35 articles were included in this study. Forty sets of data were obtained, including 30 sets on sheep [ 5 , 9 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ] and 10 on goats ( Figure 2 , Table 1 and Table 2 ) [ 16 , 17 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Meta analysis data can be downloaded from Supplementary Material .…”

“…This article compiled and analyzed data from 30 studies on Sarcocystis in sheep from 13 countries (three from Italy, one from Malaysia, one from Tunisia, nine from Iran, three from China, one from Brazil, five from Egypt, two from Iraq, and one from each of the following countries: Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Lithuania, Turkey, and Algeria) [ 5 , 9 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. In addition, we included ten studies on Sarcocystis in goats from eight countries (two from Malaysia, two from Iraq, and one from each of the following countries: Tunisia, China, Brazil, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia) [ 16 , 17 , 36 , 37 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ].…”

“…A variety of methods are now used to detect Sarcocystis, including visual inspection, microscopic examination of muscle squash, pepsin digestion, indirect immunofluorescence, histology, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), including PCR, multiplex PCR, PCR-RFLP, Pathogens 2023, 12, 902 2 of 18 and nested PCR [3][4][5][6][7][8]. The four genes that are commonly used for species identification are 18s rRNA, 28s rRNA, mitochondrial COX1 (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I), and ribosomal transcriptional space 1 (ITS-1) [9].…”

“…Figure 3. Forest plot of infection rates in sheep[5,9,. The proportion column calculated the ratio of the number of positive samples (events) to the total number of samples (total).…”