Abstract
Toxoplasma gondii causes severe disease in congenitally infected fetuses. The severity of fetal infection is related to the gestational stage at the time of maternal infection, parasite burden, and genotypic characteristics. South America has a high incidence of congenital toxoplasmosis and has the highest genotypic diversity of the parasite. In Brazil, clinical toxoplasmosis in children is notorious, however there are very limited data regarding the strains recovered from congenital infections. In this study, T. gondii strains from two cases of severe congenital toxoplasmosis from the São Paulo metropolitan area were isolated (TgHumIMTBr2 and TgHumIMTBr3) and biologically and molecularly characterized using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR–RFLP) and microsatellite analysis, revealing a new non-archetypal virulent genotype designated as #318. The other isolate, genotype #175, has already been described in domestic and wild animals in Brazil, but is now associated with acute toxoplasmosis in humans. These data reinforce the role of non-archetypal T. gondii genotypes in the severity of human congenital toxoplasmosis, highlighting the importance of studies focused on parasite isolation and genotyping for a better understanding of the virulence of isolates from human toxoplasmosis and contributing to the knowledge of the diversity of T. gondii in Brazil.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the pregnant women who donated placental tissue and amniotic liquid samples for our study.
Funding
This work was supported by the Laboratory of Protozoology of IMT/FMUSP and LIM 49 of HCFMUSP. The genotypic analysis was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa de São Paulo - FAPESP (grant no. 2018/26071–5 to the HFJP). Bezerra ECM is in receipt of a doctoral fellowship from CAPES (grant no. 88882.376673/2019–01).
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All authors affirmed that they have contributed to the development of the manuscript. Meireles LR designed the study, collected data, performed the analysis, evaluated the study findings, discussed the results, and wrote the manuscript. Bezerra ECM contributed to the virulence assessment of T. gondii isolates in mice and reviewed the manuscript. Andrade JQ, Cassiano L, Francisco RPV contributed to the investigation, collection of placental tissue and amniotic fluid from pregnant women, and manuscript review. Pena HFJ and Alves BF performed the genotypic analysis of toxoplasma isolates using PCR–RFLP, MS, and contributed to manuscript review. Andrade Jr HF contributed to the investigation and provided support for writing and editing the manuscript.
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All procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Hospital das Clinicas, School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo (HCFMUSP) (Protocol 3.118.736/2019). Animal care and experimental procedures were performed in strict accordance with the recommendations of the Conselho Nacional de Controle de Experimentação Animal (CONCEA), Brazil. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee in Animal Experimentation (CEUA) of the IMT/FMUSP, Brazil (Protocol CEUA—IMT—000422A).
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Meireles, L.R., Bezerra, E.C.M., Andrade, J.Q. et al. Isolation and characterization of Toxoplasma gondii isolates from human congenital toxoplasmosis cases reveal a new virulent genotype in São Paulo, Brazil. Parasitol Res 121, 3223–3228 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-022-07643-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-022-07643-z