title: High seroprevalence of Encephalitozoon cuniculi in pet rabbits in Japan.
abstract: Infection with Encephalitozoon cuniculi in rabbits frequently exists as a chronic, latent infection, and only a percentage of infected animals develop clinical disease. This study presents a seroepidemiological study of E. cunicucli infection in 337 pet rabbits collected from 20 prefectures in Japan in 2006 and 2007, using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) capable of measuring IgG and IgM antibodies. These rabbits were divided into the following four groups: healthy and isolated rabbits (n=74, group I), healthy and companioned rabbits (n=121, group II), neurologically diseased rabbits (n=105, group III), and other diseased rabbits (n=37, group IV). Using ELISA for IgG antibodies, the highest detection rate, 81%, was seen in group III, the second highest, 75.2%, in group II, and the lowest, 29.7%, in group I, which was significantly different to the other groups except for group IV (43.2%). On the other hand, when ELISA was used for IgM antibody detection, 14-40% of rabbits in the four groups were also observed to have anti-E. cuniculi IgM. This study demonstrated high seroprevalence of E. cuniculi in not only neurologically diseased rabbits but also healthy and other diseased rabbits.
authors.affiliation: National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido, Japan. makoto@obihiro.ac.jp
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Igarashi
authors.forename: Eiji
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Oohashi
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dautu
authors.forename: Akio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ueno
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kariya
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Furuya
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D000908:Antibodies, Fungal / Q000097:blood*; D009670:Encephalitozoon cuniculi / Q000276:immunology*; D016890:Encephalitozoonosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000662:veterinary*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000662:veterinary; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000097:blood; D007075:Immunoglobulin M / Q000097:blood; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D011817:Rabbits; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies
chemical_list: D000908:Antibodies, Fungal; D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D007075:Immunoglobulin M