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Prevalence of Tetratrichomonas buttreyi and Pentatrichomonas hominis in yellow cattle, dairy cattle, and water buffalo in China

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Abstract

The trichomonad species Tetratrichomonas buttreyi and Pentatrichomonas hominis have been reported in the bovine digestive tract in only a few studies, and the prevalence and pathogenicity of these two protists in cattle herds remain unknown. In this study, the prevalence of T. buttreyi and P. hominis in yellow cattle, dairy cattle, and water buffalo in Anhui Province, China, was determined with a PCR analysis of the small subunit ribosomal RNA genes. The overall infection rates for T. buttreyi and P. hominis were 8.1% and 5.4%, respectively. Double infections were found in 15 (1.6%) samples from four farms. The prevalence of P. hominis in cattle with abnormal feces was significantly higher than that in cattle with normal feces (χ2 = 13.0, p < 0.01), and the prevalence of T. buttreyi in the northern region of Anhui Province was also significantly higher than that in the mid region (χ2 = 16.6, p < 0.01). Minor allelic variations were detected in the T. buttreyi isolates from cattle in this study, as in other hosts in previous studies. Morphological observations, together with the PCR analysis, demonstrated that the trichomonads isolated in this study were P. hominis. The presence of T. buttreyi and P. hominis indicated that cattle are natural hosts of these two trichomonads and could be a potential source of P. hominis infections in humans and other animal hosts.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the staff on the farms for their assistance with this study. We thank Janine Miller, PhD, from Liwen Bianji, Edanz Editing China (www.liwenbianji.cn/ac), for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Modern Cattle and Goat Industrial Technology System Program of Anhui Province, the Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (1808085MC84 and 1908085QC116), the school-level talent project of Anhui Science and Technology University (dkwd201702), and the Key Discipline Construction Program of Anhui Science and Technology University (AKZDXK2015A04).

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  1. Wen-Chao Li and Jia-min Huang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Animal Science, Anhui Science and Technology University, Fengyang, 233100, People’s Republic of China

    Wen-Chao Li, Jia-min Huang, Zhui Fang, Qi Ren, Li Tang, Zhen-zhen Kan, Xin-chao Liu & You-fang Gu

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  1. Wen-Chao Li
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  2. Jia-min Huang
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Correspondence to Wen-Chao Li.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Animal Care and Welfare Committee of Anhui Science and Technology University under the approved protocol number AHSTU-2010-16, Fengyang, China. All the fecal samples from the yellow cattle, dairy cattle, and water buffalo were collected with the permission of the cattle owners.

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Section Editor: Panagiotis Karanis

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Li, WC., Huang, Jm., Fang, Z. et al. Prevalence of Tetratrichomonas buttreyi and Pentatrichomonas hominis in yellow cattle, dairy cattle, and water buffalo in China. Parasitol Res 119, 637–647 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-019-06550-0

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