High prevalence of Entamoeba infections in captive long-tailed macaques in China (original) (raw)

Abstract

Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) are bred in China for export and for use in experiments. Entamoeba infections in captive long-tailed macaques were surveyed in one of the biggest colonies located in Guangxi Province, China_._ One stool sample was obtained from each of the 152 different cages representing >3,000 macaques in the colony. The samples were examined by PCR for five Entamoeba species. The number of detected Entamoeba coli infections comprised 94% of the samples, 93% for Entamoeba chattoni, and 83% for Entamoeba dispar. In contrast, Entamoeba histolytica and Entamoeba nuttalli were not detected. Six isolates of E. dispar were obtained by culture in Tanabe–Chiba medium. Analysis of serine-rich protein genes in these isolates showed two genotypes, one of which is identical to that of the E. dispar SAW760 strain in humans. This suggests transmission of E. dispar between humans and nonhuman primates. These results demonstrate that Entamoeba infections are common, but virulent Entamoeba species are absent in this colony. This work also confirms the need for monitoring with PCR-based identification of Entamoeba species for captive macaques in breeding colonies to ensure animal health and protection of humans from zoonotic hazards.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant (to XC) from the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 30771878), a grant (to QX) from the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 30760281), and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (20590431) from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (to HT).

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China
   Meng Feng, Bin Yang, Liu Yang, Yongfeng Fu, Yijun Zhuang & Xunjia Cheng
2. Department of Pharmacology, Guilin Medical College, Guangxi, 541004, China
   Longgan Liang & Qing Xu
3. Department of Infectious Diseases, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Kanagawa, 259–1193, Japan
   Xunjia Cheng & Hiroshi Tachibana

Authors

1. Meng Feng
2. Bin Yang
3. Liu Yang
4. Yongfeng Fu
5. Yijun Zhuang
6. Longgan Liang
7. Qing Xu
8. Xunjia Cheng
9. Hiroshi Tachibana

Corresponding author

Correspondence toXunjia Cheng.

Additional information

Nucleotide sequence data reported in the paper are available in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession numbers AB583701 and AB605349.

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Feng, M., Yang, B., Yang, L. et al. High prevalence of Entamoeba infections in captive long-tailed macaques in China.Parasitol Res 109, 1093–1097 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-011-2351-2

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• Received: 04 January 2011
• Accepted: 14 March 2011
• Published: 12 April 2011
• Issue date: October 2011
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-011-2351-2

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