Park Hyung-Jin, Lee Sang-Eun, Lee Won-Ja, Oh Jung-Hyun, Maheswaran Easwaran, Seo Kyoung-Won, Song Kun-Ho
Laboratory of Veterinary Internal Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Korea.
Division of Malaria & Parasitic Diseases, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Osong-eup, Cheongwon-gun, Chungbuk 363-951, Korea.
Korean J Parasitol. 2014 Dec;52(6):691-4. doi: 10.3347/kjp.2014.52.6.691. Epub 2014 Dec 23.
The purpose of this study was to conduct a survey of Dirofilaria immitis infection among stray cats in Korea using nested PCR. We included 235 stray cats (121 females and 114 males) and evaluated each for the presence of feline heartworm infection. Blood samples were collected from 135 cats in Daejeon, 50 cats in Seoul, and 50 cats from Gyeonggi-do (Province). Of the 235 DNA samples, 14 (6.0%) were positive for D. immitis. The prevalence of infection in male cats (8/114, 7.0%) tended to be higher than that in female cats (6/121, 5.0%), but the difference was not statistically significant. In each location, 8, 2, and 4 cats were positive for infection, respectively, based on DNA testing. No significant differences in the prevalence were observed among the geographic regions, although the rate of infection was higher in Gyeonggi-do (8.0%) than Daejeon (5.9%) and Seoul (4.0%). We submitted 7 of the 14 D. immitis DNA-positive samples for sequencing analysis. All samples corresponded to partial D. immitis cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene sequences with 99% homology to the D. immitis sequence deposited in GenBank (accession no. FN391553). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first survey using nested PCR to analyze the prevalence of D. immitis in stray cats in Korea.
本研究的目的是使用巢式聚合酶链反应（nested PCR）对韩国流浪猫中的犬恶丝虫感染情况进行调查。我们纳入了235只流浪猫（121只雌性和114只雄性），并评估每只猫是否感染猫心丝虫。从大田的135只猫、首尔的50只猫和京畿道的50只猫采集了血样。在235个DNA样本中，14个（6.0%）犬恶丝虫呈阳性。雄性猫的感染率（8/114，7.0%）往往高于雌性猫（6/121，5.0%），但差异无统计学意义。根据DNA检测，在每个地点分别有8只、2只和4只猫感染呈阳性。尽管京畿道的感染率（8.0%）高于大田（5.9%）和首尔（4.0%），但各地区的感染率没有显著差异。我们将14个犬恶丝虫DNA阳性样本中的7个送去进行测序分析。所有样本均对应于犬恶丝虫细胞色素c氧化酶亚基I基因的部分序列，与GenBank中 deposited的犬恶丝虫序列（登录号：FN391553）具有99%的同源性。据我们所知，这是首次使用巢式PCR分析韩国流浪猫中犬恶丝虫感染率的调查。
