-like derived from opossum in Northeastern Brazil: propagation in avian cells, molecular characterization and bioassay in birds.

Most reported isolates of spp. derived from Brazilian opossums ( sp.) have genetic characteristics distinct from the known species of , but behave similarly as , as they are infective to budgerigars. In previous studies, these Brazilian isolates, classified as -like, were originated from South and Southeast regions of Brazil. In the current work, we aimed to culture and to perform multilocus sequence analysis of sp. derived from a Brazilian opossum (/) that inhabited the city of Salvador, Bahia, in the Northeast of Brazil. The parasite was isolated in Vero cells, referred here as Sarco-BA1, and propagated in avian cells (DF-1). Molecular analysis of Sarco-BA1 revealed that the nucleotide sequence of the internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) of the rDNA was identical to all isolates (n = 19) of spp. reported in two studies from South and Southeast regions of the country. Two budgerigars were inoculated with 10 and 1000 sporocysts of Sarco-BA1, respectively, and developed acute sarcocystosis, showing that the parasite behaves like . It was interesting to observe that Sarco-BA1 had almost identical ITS1 and SAG sequences to all 16 isolates of -like recently described in Magellanic penguins () rescued on the coast of Espírito Santo state, Brazil. Our results suggest that Sarco-BA1 and -like may represent a single species of . Propagation of the parasite in a permanent avian cell line significantly improved the yield of merozoites in cell culture. To our knowledge, this is the first molecular study and isolation of -like derived from Northeastern Brazil. Studies are under way to determine the infectivity of Sarco-BA1 to other animal species, as well as to investigate serological cross-reactivity among Sarco-BA1, and related species.