Abstract
Blastocystis is a stramenopile protist of controversial pathogenicity. The organism colonizes a broad range of vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. Blastocystis has also been found in the environment both in water and soil. Several routes of transmission have been proposed including human to human, animal to human, and via contaminated food and water. In recent years, the presence of Blastocystis in vegetables has started to be explored. However, most studies have focused on microscopic detection. Moreover, works of this type from Asia are barely available. Hence, the aim of this preliminary study was to examine the occurrence of Blastocystis in raw vegetables sold in markets in northern Thailand. Fresh produce (n = 20) commonly used in Thai cuisine (Lanna) was purchased from two street markets and screened for Blastocystis using qPCR. Blastocystis was detected in 45% of the samples with the dominant subtype being ST3. Produce growing underground, such as galangal, carrot, and beetroot, were positive for the organism suggesting soil or inadequately composted manure as the source of contamination. To our knowledge, our study is the first to perform subtyping of Blastocystis in vegetables. Our results hint toward fresh produce being a, as yet, not widely explored, transmission route of Blastocystis in the studied community. Looking forward, large-scale investigations on the prevalence of this and other organisms under the One Health umbrella should be undertaken.
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Data availability
Sequences generated in this study are available in GenBank.
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Funding
This work was funded by the Thailand Research Fund (RSA6080048) awarded to Eleni Gentekaki. This research and innovation activity was funded by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) scholarship (N41D640028) for developing Ph.D. students awarded to Vasana Jinatham.
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Vasana Jinatham: methodology, conceptualization, resources, supervision, validation, and draft writing. Chadsiri Nonebudsri: fieldwork and methodology. Thanawat Wandee: fieldwork and methodology. Siam Popluechai: methodology. Anastasios D. Tsaousis: supervision, validation, and the final draft. Eleni Gentekaki: resources, supervision, validation, methodology, and the final draft.
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Jinatham, V., Wandee, T., Nonebudsri, C. et al. Blastocystis subtypes in raw vegetables from street markets in northern Thailand. Parasitol Res 122, 1027–1031 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-023-07781-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-023-07781-y