Prevalence and species identification of Sarcocystis in raw hamburgers distributed in Yazd, Iran using PCR-RFLP

Introduction: hamburger is a popular type of fast foods consumed all over the world. sarcocystisspp. is a zoonotic parasitic pathogen which endangers safety of meat and meat products. thepresent study describes the prevalence rate of sarcocystis spp. in hamburgers in yazd, iran usingpcr-rflp.materials and methods: raw hamburger samples (100 traditional and 90 industrial) from centralregion of iran, yazd were randomly selected. the genomic dna was extracted using salting outmethod. detection and identification of sarcocystis isolates was performed using pcr-rflp.results: the results showed that 77.9% of all tested hamburger samples were infected withsarcocystis spp. the infection rate in the traditional hamburger (87%) was significantly (p < 0.05)higher than the industrial ones (67.8%). the rate of s. cruzi, s. hirsuta and s. hominis in thetraditional hamburger samples, was 39%, 61% and 54% respectively; while the rate of s. cruzi, s.hirsuta and s. hominis in the industrial hamburgers was 67.8%, 58.9% and 57.8%. s. cruzi,respectively. the rate was significantly (p < 0.05) higher in industrial hamburgers than in thetraditional ones. no statistical association was found between percentage of meat content and therate of contamination in the industrial hamburger (p > 0.05).conclusion: having zoonotic significance, considerable infestation rate of s. hominis seems to behigh in hamburgers of this region of iran. to the best of our knowledge, this is the first of its ownkind carried out in hamburger samples in iran.