Prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in Myocastor coypus in a protected Italian wetland

Background: toxoplasma gondii is the causative agent for a major zoonosis with cosmopolitan distribution. water has been implicated in outbreaks of toxoplasmosis in recent years. coypus (myocastor coypus),commonly nutria,are large semi-aquatic invasive rodents,naturalized throughout european countries,including most wetlands of central italy. the habitat of these animals is both terrestrial and aquatic,making them a species highly exposed to the parasite. findings. the occurrence of the infection was evaluated using a modified agglutination test (mat) in 74 adult coypus from a naturalized population living in a wetland of central italy. nested pcr (n-pcr) assay was carried out on some of them. positive t. gondii mat results were found in 44 animals (594%),30 males (682%) and 14 females (318%). antibody titers were ranging from 20 to 40960,while 12 out of 23 (522%),examined animals,8 males (667%) and 4 females (333%),resulted positive to n-pcr. all n-pcr positive animals were seropositive,showing antibody titers ranging from 640 to 40960. conclusions: our results indicate that examined animals are heavily parasitized with toxoplasma. this suggests that coypus could be a reservoir of this parasite,because they can be eaten both by scavenger animals and by humans,and that these animals would play a role in maintaining the cycle of t. gondii. © 2011 nardoni et al; licensee biomed central ltd.