الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Blood samples (n=296) were collected from cattle in Egypt and examined for babesial infection. Infections were detected using both traditional as microscopic examination of blood smears and novel diagnostic techniques as recombinant Rhoptry associated protein-1 (RAP-1) based competitive enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (cELISA) and nested polymerase chain reaction (nPCR). Higher prevalence was recorded by cELISA, followed by nPCR, whereas the lowest prevalence was recorded by using microscopic examination of blood smears. In the present study, Positive samples (n=20) for B.bovis, positive samples (n=20) for both species (B.bovis and B. bigemina), positive samples (n=10) for B.bigemina using cELISA and nPCR and negative samples (n=20) for both species, were selected to carry out a real-time PCR for the quantification of cytokines expression: Interferon gamma (IFN-γ), Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) and Transforming growth factor- beta 1 (TGF-β1). Babesia-positive samples were considered to have sub-clinical infection of babesiosis. The results revealed that infected cattle showed highly significant up-regulation of IL-1β and TGF-β1 genes and down-regulation of IFN-γ gene when compared with uninfected animals. |