Seropathological Diagnosis of Toxoplasma gondii in Stray Cats in Baghdad Province

Abstract

The current study was performed an investigation in seropositive stray cats with Toxoplasma gondii and to correlate the results of pathological lesions with seropositive results of the cats. To achieve these goals, fifty blood samples and specimens from internal organs (liver, spleen, brain, kidney, intestine and lung) of stray cats were collected from different area of Baghdad Province during the period 1.10.2011-1.10.2012. Seropositive ELISA-IgG was demonstrated that 66 % of stray cats while female expressed (75 %) of seropositive ELISA-IgG were higher than male (30% ) and animals with average age 2months showed high percentage of seropositive ELISA-IgG (100%) as compared with age (adult cat) that expressed( 63.82 %) of seropositive. There was a significant difference (P≤0.01) among positive cases to anti-Toxoplasma ELISA-IgG. Severe pathological lesions were noticed in the lungs ,livers and intestines of animals that expressed high (optical density) (OD) of anti-Toxoplasma IgG ,in addition ,tachyzoits intracytoplasm of alveolar macrophages and hepatocytes as well as free zoites in alveolar space of the lung, were reported. Local necrosis with tachyzoites was seen in the brain of the cats, in addition to mineralization. On bases of the presence of pathological lesions in cats that expressed seropositive anti-Toxoplasma antibodies, it can be conclude that T.gondii is responsible for the appearance of inflammatory reaction in the internal organs of cats and there is a correlation between seropositive and pathological lesions of T.gondii infection and this parasite is highly distributed in Baghdad stray cats and it may be an important cause of abortion in the women.

Feline Toxoplasmosis in Greece: A Countrywide Seroprevalence Study and Associated Risk Factors

“…Moreover, the difference might not have been statistically significant due to the transfer of maternal antibodies in cats younger than six months, which increased their seropositivity. Similarly to our results, many researchers have not established any correlation between increased age and seroprevalence [50,61,63,64,71,76], although, in some of those studies, a non-significant increase in seropositivity in older cats was depicted [63,71].…”

“…Conversely, some studies observed higher seropositivity in female cats [45,[74][75][76]. The explanations provided were that females have different behaviours than males, and may wander more based on the season [45] or hormonal imbalances [76].…”

“…In this context, several studies recorded a significant increase in seropositivity as cats became older [44,45,[52][53][54][56][57][58][59][65][66][67]69,70,[72][73][74][78][79][80]. The only exception seems to be with kittens a few weeks old, as they may have a seroprevalence of 30% [66] or even 100% [76], probably due to the transfer of IgG maternal antibodies through the colostrum [64,76]. After that age, seropositivity starts to decrease before naturally increasing again after kittens become two months old and start hunting [66].…”

Seroprevalence of and Risk Factors for Toxoplasma gondii Infection in Cats from Greece

“…However, in our study based on the results of univariate analysis, females were significantly more likely to be T.gondii -seropositive compared to male cats. Our finding is consistent with other studies that showed higher seropositivity in female cats and could be explained by the fact that females behave differently than males and may roam more based on the season or hormonal imbalances [ 53 , 57 , 59 , 60 ]. However, female gender was not statistically significant in the multivariate model.…”

“…This finding is consistent with previous studies, and it may be explained by the fact that older cats have more time to be exposed to the parasite [ 50 , 55 , 56 ] and not because older cats may have a weaker immune response, which can make them more susceptible to T. gondii infection and more likely to develop antibodies against the parasite. Although seropositivity increases with age, indicating postnatal transmission of T. gondii , in a study published in 2014, the authors showed a significantly higher seroprevalence of T. gondii in young cats aged 2 months (100.0%) compared to adult cats (66.8%) [ 57 ]. This finding probably was due to the transfer of IgG maternal antibodies through the colostrum [ 50 ].…”