Veterinary Parasitology Research Group, The Veterinary Parasitology Unit, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand.
Animal Vector-Borne Disease Research Group, The Veterinary Parasitology Unit, Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand.
Sci Rep. 2018 Apr 11;8(1):5827. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-24048-0.
Plasmodium was first identified in a goat in Angola in 1923, and only recently characterized by DNA isolation from a goat blood sample in Zambia. Goats were first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent approximately 10,000 years ago, and are now globally distributed. It is not known if the Plasmodium identified in African goats originated from parasites circulating in the local ungulates, or if it co-evolved in the goat before its domestication. To address this question, we performed PCR-based surveillance using a total of 1,299 goat blood samples collected from Sudan and Kenya in Africa, Iran in west Asia, and Myanmar and Thailand in southeast Asia. Plasmodium DNA was detected from all locations, suggesting that the parasite is not limited to Africa, but widely distributed. Whole mitochondrial DNA sequences revealed that there was only one nucleotide substitution between Zambian/Kenyan samples and others, supporting the existence of a goat-specific Plasmodium species, presumably Plasmodium caprae, rather than infection of goats by local ungulate malaria parasites. We also present the first photographic images of P. caprae, from one Kenyan goat sample.
疟原虫于 1923 年首次在安哥拉的一只山羊中被发现，直到最近才通过从赞比亚山羊血液样本中分离 DNA 来进行鉴定。山羊最早于大约 10000 年前在新月沃地被驯化，如今已在全球范围内分布。目前尚不清楚在非洲山羊中发现的疟原虫是否源自当地有蹄类动物循环中的寄生虫，或者它是否在山羊被驯化之前就在山羊体内共同进化。为了解决这个问题，我们使用聚合酶链式反应（PCR）对来自非洲的苏丹和肯尼亚、西亚的伊朗以及东南亚的缅甸和泰国的总共 1299 份山羊血液样本进行了监测。从所有地点都检测到了疟原虫 DNA，这表明这种寄生虫不仅限于非洲，而是广泛分布。完整的线粒体 DNA 序列显示，赞比亚/肯尼亚样本与其他样本之间只有一个核苷酸的差异，这支持存在一种专门感染山羊的疟原虫，可能是山羊疟原虫，而不是由当地有蹄类动物疟原虫感染山羊。我们还展示了第一张来自肯尼亚山羊样本的疟原虫 caprae 的照片。
