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      Prevalence and subtype distribution of Blastocystis sp. isolates from poultry in Lebanon and evidence of zoonotic potential

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          Abstract

          Background

          Blastocystis sp. is a common protozoan parasite frequently identified in the digestive tract of humans and a large variety of animal hosts worldwide, including birds. It exhibits a large genetic diversity with the identification of 17 subtypes (STs), most of them with low host specificity. ST6 and ST7 were identified in birds and suggested to represent avian STs only in the context of scarce small-scale epidemiological surveys. Moreover, these two STs also account for a significant proportion of human infections whose zoonotic origin has never been clearly confirmed. Therefore, molecular screening of Blastocystis sp. was conducted by quantitative real-time PCR for fecal samples from poultry farms and their in-contact humans from slaughterhouses in Lebanon. In parallel, a control group consisting of patients hospitalized in the same geographical area and reporting no contact with poultry was also screened for the presence of the parasite.

          Results

          The overall prevalence of Blastocystis sp. was shown to reach around 32% in chicken samples and 65% in the farms screened. All the avian isolates were subtyped and belonged to either ST6 or ST7, with a large predominance of ST6. Fifty-four percent of slaughterhouse staff members were positive for Blastocystis sp. compared with a similar prevalence of 56% in hospitalized patients. ST3 was predominant in both human cohorts followed by either ST1 then ST2 among slaughterhouse staff or by ST2 then ST1 among hospitalized patients. ST6 was also identified in two slaughterhouse workers and not in the group of hospitalized patients. Gene sequence identity was observed between chicken and human ST6 isolates from the same slaughterhouse.

          Conclusions

          Our data revealed a high prevalence of Blastocystis sp. in chicken samples and confirmed that ST6 and ST7 represented avian-adapted STs. Among both human cohorts, Blastocystis sp. infection was shown to exceed 50% with a predominance of ST3. The identification of ST6 in slaughterhouse staff members confirmed the zoonotic transmission of this ST through repeated and direct contact between chickens and their handlers.

          Electronic supplementary material

          The online version of this article (10.1186/s13071-018-2975-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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          Most cited references28

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          New insights on classification, identification, and clinical relevance of Blastocystis spp.

          Blastocystis is an unusual enteric protozoan parasite of humans and many animals. It has a worldwide distribution and is often the most commonly isolated organism in parasitological surveys. The parasite has been described since the early 1900s, but only in the last decade or so have there been significant advances in our understanding of Blastocystis biology. However, the pleomorphic nature of the parasite and the lack of standardization in techniques have led to confusion and, in some cases, misinterpretation of data. This has hindered laboratory diagnosis and efforts to understand its mode of reproduction, life cycle, prevalence, and pathogenesis. Accumulating epidemiological, in vivo, and in vitro data strongly suggest that Blastocystis is a pathogen. Many genotypes exist in nature, and recent observations indicate that humans are, in reality, hosts to numerous zoonotic genotypes. Such genetic diversity has led to a suggestion that previously conflicting observations on the pathogenesis of Blastocystis are due to pathogenic and nonpathogenic genotypes. Recent epidemiological, animal infection, and in vitro host-Blastocystis interaction studies suggest that this may indeed be the case. This review focuses on such recent advances and also provides updates on laboratory and clinical aspects of Blastocystis spp.
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            DNA barcoding of blastocystis.

            We have developed a simple method for subtyping the intestinal protistan parasite Blastocystis using an approach equivalent to DNA barcoding in animals. Amplification of a 600 bp region of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene followed by single primer sequencing of the PCR product provides enough data to assign isolates to specific subtypes unambiguously. We believe that this approach will prove useful in future epidemiological studies.
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              Genetic diversity of blastocystis in livestock and zoo animals.

              Blastocystis is a common unicellular anaerobic eukaryote that inhabits the large intestine of many animals worldwide, including humans. The finding of Blastocystis in faeces in mammals and birds has led to proposals of zoonotic potential and that these hosts may be the source of many human infections. Blastocystis is, however, a genetically diverse complex of many distinct organisms (termed subtypes; STs), and sampling to date has been limited, both geographically and in the range of hosts studied. In order to expand our understanding of host specificity of Blastocystis STs, 557 samples were examined from various non-primate animal hosts and from a variety of different countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. STs were identified using 'barcoding' of the small subunit rRNA gene using DNA extracted either from culture or directly from faeces. The host and geographic range of several STs has thereby been greatly expanded and the evidence suggests that livestock is not a major contributor to human infection. Two new STs were detected among the barcode sequences obtained; for these, and for three others where the data were incomplete, the corresponding genes were fully sequenced and phylogenetic analysis was undertaken. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                stephaniegreige186@gmail.com
                dima.elsafadi@hotmail.com
                noemie.becu@gmail.com
                nausicaa.gantois@pasteur-lille.fr
                bpereira@chu-clermontferrand.fr
                magali.chabe@univ-lille2.fr
                sadia.benamrouz@univ-catholille.fr
                gabriela.Certad@pasteur-lille.fr
                relhage@lari.gov.lb
                marianne.CHEMALY@anses.fr
                mhamze@monzerhamze.com
                eric.viscogliosi@pasteur-lille.fr
                Journal
                Parasit Vectors
                Parasit Vectors
                Parasites & Vectors
                BioMed Central (London )
                1756-3305
                4 July 2018
                4 July 2018
                2018
                : 11
                : 389
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2159 9858, GRID grid.8970.6, Université de Lille, CNRS, Inserm, CHU Lille, , Institut Pasteur de Lille, U1019 - UMR 8204 - CIIL - Centre d’Infection et d’Immunité de Lille, ; Lille, France
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2324 3572, GRID grid.411324.1, Laboratoire Microbiologie Santé Environnement (LMSE), Ecole Doctorale des Sciences et de Technologie, Faculté de Santé Publique, , Université Libanaise, ; Tripoli, Lebanon
                [3 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0639 4151, GRID grid.411163.0, CHU Clermont-Ferrand, Unité de Biostatistiques, Direction de la Recherche Clinique (DRCI), ; Clermont-Ferrand, France
                [4 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2165 6146, GRID grid.417666.4, Laboratoire Ecologie et Biodiversité, Faculté de Gestion Economie et Sciences, Institut Catholique de Lille, ; Lille, France
                [5 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2165 6146, GRID grid.417666.4, Département de la Recherche Médicale, Groupement des Hôpitaux de l’Institut Catholique de Lille, Faculté de Médecine et Maïeutique, , Université Catholique de Lille, ; Lille, France
                [6 ]Institut de Recherche Agronomique Libanais (IRAL), Laboratoire de Microbiologie Alimentaire, Station de Fanar, Jdeideh El-Metn, Lebanon
                [7 ]ANSES, Laboratoire de Ploufragan - Plouzané, Unité Hygiène et qualité des produits avicoles et porcins, Université Bretagne-Loire, Ploufragan, France
                Article
                2975
                10.1186/s13071-018-2975-5
                6030734
                29973261
                009230ae-9176-4144-a591-c31c2631a444
                © The Author(s). 2018

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 24 March 2018
                : 22 June 2018
                Funding
                Funded by: Université de Lille 2
                Funded by: Partenariat Hubert Curien Cedre
                Award ID: 32684NM
                Award Recipient :
                Categories
                Research
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2018

                Parasitology
                avian parasitology,blastocystis sp.,intestinal parasite,molecular epidemiology,real-time quantitative pcr,subtyping,transmission,zoonosis

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