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Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) as Reservoir of Zoonotic Yeasts: Bioindicator of Environmental Quality

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Abstract

Wildlife animals are recognized as reservoirs for zoonotic fungi and their faeces might play an important role in introducing pathogens into the environment. Thought wild boar (Sus scrofa) population has dramatically increased across Europe, information about their possible role in dissemination of zoonotic pathogenic yeasts in the environment is scant. Therefore, fecal samples (n = 124) from wild boars from Campania region (Southern Italy) were collected and yeasts identified biochemically and molecularly by sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer region and their phylogenetical relationship assessed. The antifungal susceptibility profiles of yeasts were also investigated using AFST-EUCAST method. Yeasts were isolated from 50.1% of the samples with the highest occurrence in samples from the province of Salerno (61.1%). A total of 368 Candida strains belonging to nine species were identified, with Candida albicans (45.7%), followed by Candida krusei (15.2%), Kazachstania slooffiae (9.8%) and Candida parapsilosis (7.6%) as the most prevalent identified species. Among C. albicans four sequence types (i.e., ST1-ST4) were identified with an intraspecific nucleotide difference up to 0.21%. The ML tree grouped all representative sequence types as paraphyletic clades with those of the references yeast species, respectively and supported by high bootstrap values. Fluconazole was the less active drug whereas, posaconazole, voriconazole, and isavuconazole the most active one. No resistance phenomena were observed for C. albicans and high MICs values for 5FC, azoles and echinocandines were registered in non-albicans Candida spp. This study showed, for the first time, the important role of wild boars in dissemination of pathogenic fungi in the environment. The absence of resistance phenomena in the Candida spp. might reflect environmental free from residues of azoles antifungals pollution or chemicals and suggests the role of wild boar as bio indicators of environment quality.

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Sequences were deposited in GenBank under accession numbers MW279244– MW279253.

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Funding

This study has been partially financed by the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Grant Number PI20CIII/00043).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy

    Wafa Rhimi, Giovanni Sgroi, Chioma Inyang Aneke, Giada Annoscia, Maria Stefania Latrofa, Domenico Otranto & Claudia Cafarchia

  2. Department of Veterinary Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

    Chioma Inyang Aneke

  3. Dipartimento Interdisciplinare di Medicina, Università degli Studi “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy

    Adriana Mosca

  4. Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Productions, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Vincenzo Veneziano

  5. Osservatorio Faunistico Venatorio ‐ Campania Region, Naples, Italy

    Vincenzo Veneziano

  6. Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

    Domenico Otranto

  7. Medical Mycology Reference Laboratory, National Center for Microbiology, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

    Ana Alastruey-Izquierdo

Authors
  1. Wafa Rhimi
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Contributions

Rhimi Wafa and Claudia Cafarchia conceptualised the study and wrote the manuscript. Sgroi Giovanni and Vincenzo Veneziano collected and verified animal information. Rhimi Wafa and Aneke Chioma Inyang performed the research. Giada Annoscia, Maria Stefania Latrofa and Ana Alastruey-Izquierdo have contributed on the identification of organism. Wafa Rhimi and Cafarchia Claudia and Ana Alastruey-Izquierdo analyzed and interpreted data. Cafarchia Claudia, Otranto Domenico and Ana Alastruey-Izquierdo revised, edited, and made intellectual inputs in the manuscripts. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claudia Cafarchia.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical Statement

This study is a part of the project ‘Piano Emergenza Cinghiali in Campania—PECC 2016–2019’ (protocol number: Decreto Dirigenziale no. 210-Piano B7 DPAR 2018) that was approved by Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA). The approval letter has been included in Supplementary Material.

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Rhimi, W., Sgroi, G., Aneke, C.I. et al. Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) as Reservoir of Zoonotic Yeasts: Bioindicator of Environmental Quality. Mycopathologia 187, 235–248 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11046-021-00613-6

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