Cortes Helder, Leitão Alexandre, Gottstein Bruno, Hemphill Andrew
Victor Caeiro Laboratory of Parasitology,ICAAM - Instituto de Ciências Agrárias e Ambientais Mediterrânicas - Universidade de Évora - Núcleo da Mitra,Ap. 94, 7002-554, Évora,Portugal.
Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, CVZ, CIISA Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária,Universidade de Lisboa,Av. Universidade Técnica, 1300-447 Lisboa,Portugal.
Parasitology. 2014 Sep;141(11):1406-17. doi: 10.1017/S0031182014000262. Epub 2014 Apr 2.
Bovine besnoitiosis is caused by the largely unexplored apicomplexan parasite Besnoitia besnoiti. In cows, infection during pregnancy often results in abortion, and chronically infected bulls become infertile. Similar to other apicomplexans B. besnoiti has acquired a largely intracellular lifestyle, but its complete life cycle is still unknown, modes of transmission have not been entirely resolved and the definitive host has not been identified. Outbreaks of bovine besnoitiosis in cattle were described in the 1990s in Portugal and Spain, and later several cases were also detected in France. More cases have been reported recently in hitherto unaffected countries, including Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Croatia. To date, there is still no effective pharmaceutical compound available for the treatment of besnoitiosis in cattle, and progress in the identification of novel targets for intervention through pharmacological or immunological means is hampered by the lack of molecular data on the genomic and transcriptomic level. In addition, the lack of an appropriate small animal laboratory model, and wide gaps in our knowledge on the host-parasite interplay during the life cycle of this parasite, renders vaccine and drug development a cost- and labour-intensive undertaking.
牛贝诺孢子虫病由基本上尚未被研究的顶复门寄生虫贝诺孢子虫（Besnoitia besnoiti）引起。在母牛中，孕期感染常导致流产，而慢性感染的公牛会不育。与其他顶复门寄生虫类似，贝诺孢子虫在很大程度上已形成细胞内寄生的生活方式，但其完整生命周期仍不为人知，传播方式尚未完全明确，终末宿主也未确定。20世纪90年代在葡萄牙和西班牙曾报道过牛群中的牛贝诺孢子虫病疫情，后来在法国也检测到了几例。最近在包括意大利、德国、瑞士、匈牙利和克罗地亚等此前未受影响的国家也报告了更多病例。迄今为止，仍没有有效的药物化合物可用于治疗牛贝诺孢子虫病，由于缺乏基因组和转录组水平的分子数据，通过药理学或免疫学手段确定新的干预靶点的进展受到阻碍。此外，缺乏合适的小型动物实验室模型，以及我们对该寄生虫生命周期中宿主-寄生虫相互作用的认识存在很大差距，使得疫苗和药物开发成为一项成本高昂且劳动密集的工作。
