Abstract
Passerine birds are widely distributed and adapted to various habitats, therefore they are commonly exposed to, and infected with Toxoplasma gondii. The purpose of our project was to determine the prevalence and genotypes of T. gondii in 31 different species of passerines collected as mortalities due to window collisions in North-Central Oklahoma. DNA was extracted from breast tissue and subjected to PCR with primers that amplify a portion of the T. gondii B1 gene. Genotyping was based on a portion of the infected birds based on a multiplex PCR followed by RFLP of 12 T. gondii markers. Of 103 birds comprising 31 species, the overall prevalence (95% confidence interval) of T. gondii infection was 33.0% (24.1‒42.6%). Significant differences in the proportion of T. gondii in birds according to sex or weight were not observed. However, sample sizes of each species were small and prevented a robust analysis of T. gondii according to those biological variables. Genotyping of T. gondii in a subset of 13 infected individuals of 7 species revealed 4 genotypes, according to the Toxoplasma Data Base: #54, #139, #20, and #220. Our results, while hampered by a small sample size for each bird species, suggest that infection with T. gondii in Oklahoma, is common in both migrant and resident passerines.
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Acknowledgements
Toxoplasma gondii positive controls were provided by Dr. Chunlei Su at the Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee. Dr. Crystal Matt was funded by the Morris Animal Foundation, the Oklahoma State University Summer Research Scholars Program, and the Dr. Kristie Plunkett Fund for Exotic Animal Medicine. Additional support for Dr. O’Connell came from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture McIntire Stennis project (Project No. 1023033).
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Sample collection was performed by MC, BJ, and OTJ. DNA isolation, PCR and genotyping was done by CM, CA, and SRC. Data was analyzed by RMV. The first draft of the manuscript was written by SRC and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Avian cadavers were collected under the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation Scientific Collection Permits 6623, 6961, and 7390.
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Scimeca, R.C., Carpenter, A., Caron, M. et al. Prevalence and genetic characterization of Toxoplasma gondii strains isolated from 31 wild Passeriformes collected in North-Central Oklahoma. J Parasit Dis 47, 140–145 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12639-022-01548-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12639-022-01548-5