Trichinella patagoniensis in wild boars: a first approach

BESSI, C; ERCOLE, M; FARIÑA, F; RIBICICH, M.; BONBONI, A; ACERBO, M.; KRIVOKAPICH, S.; PASQUALETTI, M

Conferencia; 15th International Conference on Trichinellosis; 2019

Trichinella patagoniensis was the latest Trichinella species isolated in animals. Therefore the knowledge regarding this new species is limited. According to some studies, T. patagoniensis had a different range of host than T. spiralis. The present study aims to know whether this species is able to develop on the wild boars, one of the most common hosts of T. spiralis. For this reason, 5 wild boars (Sus scrofa) were inoculated PO with 20000 T. patagoniensis larvae (ISS2311), and 3 animals remained uninfected as control group. Before and post infection (pi) whole blood samples were taken every one week by venepuncture of the jugular vein and collected in tubes with EDTA for eosinophil counts. Three blood smears from all wild boars were done from each day of extraction. After 20 weeks pi, all animals were euthanized. From each wild boar, 9 muscle or groups of muscle samples were taken to determine the larvae distribution. Tongue, masseters, boston butt, oesophagus, diaphragm, intercostal muscles, tenderloin, anterior and posterior limbs were used. One hundred grams of each muscle were used to determine the larvae distribution. All muscles were freed form fascia and tendons, and digested using artificial digestion. Recovered larvae of each muscle sample were expressed as larvae per gram (lpg). The main infected muscles were tongue and diaphragm; however the larvae burden found was extremely low being the maximum larvae burden found in one muscle 0.08 lpg. Moreover, no larvae were found in intercostal and masseter muscles of any infected wild boar. The eosinophil count began to increase one week pi reaching maximum levels (up to 14%) around week 2 ? 4 pi, afterward began to decrease to 1-3% at week 7 pi. The present study shows for the first time that T. patagoniensis had low infectivity for wild boars and thus these animals would not represent a risk for the transmission of this parasite in nature. The present research was approved by the Committee for the Use and Care of Laboratory Animals (CICUAL) of the Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, University of Buenos Aires, under permit number 2015/16. This work was supported by Universidad de Buenos Aires, Secretaría de Ciencia y Técnica Subsidio UBACyT 20020130100336BA and UBACyT 220170200331BA and Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, FONCyT Subsidio PICT-2015-2350 and PICT-2015-3469.