Biomarkers of gastrointestinal nematodes in beef cattle raised in a tropical area.

Biomarkers are specific molecular, histological, or physiological characteristics of normal or pathogenic biological processes and are promising in the diagnosis of gastrointestinal nematodes (GINs). Although some biomarkers have been validated for infection by Ostertagia sp. in cattle raised in temperate regions, there is a lack of information for tropical regions. The aim of this project was to assess potential biomarkers and validate the most promising. In the first study, 36 bovines (Nelore breed) naturally infected by GINs were distributed into two groups: infected (not treated with anthelmintic) and treated (treated with fenbendazole on days 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 42, and 56). The variables of interest were live weight, fecal egg count, hemogram, serum biochemical markers, phosphorus, gastrin, and pepsinogen. In the second step, pepsinogen was assessed in cattle of the Nelore breed distributed among three groups: infected (not treated with anthelmintic), MOX (treated with moxidectin), and IVM + BZD (treated with ivermectin + albendazole). In the first study, no difference between groups was found for weight, albumin, hematocrit (corpuscular volume [CV]), erythrocytes, or hemoglobin. Negative correlations were found between pepsinogen and both CV and albumin, and albumin was negatively correlated with the percentage of Haemonchus sp. in the fecal culture. Among the biomarkers, only pepsinogen differentiated treated and infected (beginning with the 28th day of the study). In the second study, a reduction in pepsinogen was found after anthelmintic treatment. Therefore, pepsinogen is a promising biomarker of worms in cattle naturally infected by the genera Haemonchus and Cooperia in tropical areas.

Mitochondrial genome evidence suggests Cooperia sp. from China may represent a distinct species from Cooperia oncophora from Australia.

Cooperia spp. are parasitic nematodes parasitizing in small intestine of ruminants with a worldwide distribution. Infection of ruminants with Cooperia species can cause severe enteritis, causing significant socio-economic losses to the livestock industry. However, it is yet to know whether there is genetic diversity in mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences of Cooperia nematodes from different geographic regions. The objective of the present study was to examine sequence difference in mt genomes between Cooperia sp. from China and other Cooperia species. We determined the sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS-1 and ITS-2) of nuclear ribosomal DNA (rDNA) of 11 Cooperia specimens collected from the small intestine of a Tianzhu White yak in Gansu Province, northwestern China, which had 99% similarity with that of C. oncophora from Brazil (GenBank accession Number: AJ544290) in ITS-1, and 99% similarity with those from Denmark (AB245040), Scotland and Australia (AJ000032) in ITS-2, indicating that specimens used in the present study should at least represent parasites in Cooperia. We then determined the complete mt genome sequences of one representative specimen of Cooperia sp. from China (CspC), compared the mt DNA sequences with that of C. oncophora from Australia (COA, GQ888713), and conducted phylogenetic analysis with selected nematodes using both maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) methods based on both concatenated 12 PCGs, rrnL and rrnS sequences and partial cox2 sequences. The complete mt genome sequence of CspC (KY769271) is 13, 583 bp in length, which is 91 bp shorter than that from COA. The sequence difference over the entire mt genome between CspC and COA was 12.2% in nucleotide and 6.3% in inferred amino acids, with nad4L and nad1 being the most variable and the most conserved PCGs, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that CspC and COA were closely-related but distinct taxa. The determination of mt genome sequences for Cooperia sp. from China also provides novel resources for further studies of taxonomy, systematics and population genetics of Cooperia from different geographical locations.

Efeito da fermentação aeróbia na viabilidade de ovos de nematódeos trichostrongilídeos / Viability of trichostrongylid nematode eggs after aerobic fermentation

O efeito da fermentação aeróbia na viabilidade de avos de nematódeos trichostrongilídeos foi avaliado em um sistema em que fezes de ovinos contendo ovos de Haemonchus contortus foram imersas em um tanque de fermentação dotado de aerador mecânico intermitente e fezes de bovinos com ovos de nematódeos trichostrongilídeos havendo predomínio de Cooperia sp. foram deixadas fermentar em depósitos a campo. Amostras dos ovos submetidas aos dois processos de fermentação foram colhidas em diferentes intervalos e cultivadas para extração das larvas infectantes. Ambos os processos de fermentação reduziram o número de ovos viáveis. Esterilização superior a 99% dos ovos foi obtida com 14 dias pós-exposição nos dois processos.

The viability of gastrointestinal nematode eggs after aerobicfermentation was evaluated in two experiments. In the first, feces of sheep containing Haemonchus contorts eggs were submitted to aerobic fermentation by mechanical air pumping in a 300m³-capacity tank. In the second, bovine feces positive for eggs of the most common gastrointestinal nematodes were kept in a bovine fecal deposit in the field. Fecal samples from the two experiments were cultivated for the extraction of infective larvae. Both processes reduced the number of viable eggs. Reduction in the number of viable eggs were higher than 99% in both cases after 14 days of exposure.