Seminested PCR for Diagnosis of Neospora caninum Infection in Cattle

Neospora caninum, an apicomplexan protozoan, is regarded as a major cause of abortion and stillbirth in cattle in countries world-wide. the ability to detection nicaninum in tissue samples can be a useful detection diagnostic tool for use in the study of the pathogenicity, immunoprophylaxis, and treatment of neospora infection. however, molecular biology is one of the most sensitive tools for detecting protozoa in infected tissue samples. specific semi-nested per was designed based on specific itsl and 5.8s rrna genomic dna for detection of parasite in infected tissues. the designed pcrdetected four of six aborted fetal brain samples infected by nicaninum. our results revealed that pcr with selected primers gave a 357bp product in examined samples and confirmed the presence of nicaninum dna in infected fetal brains. this is the first report that demonstrated the reliability of pcrbased assay to identify nicaninum infection in iran.