Molecular identification of avian malaria in wild birds from Iran

Background: Blood parasites are the influential selective organisms that could affect practically all phases of their hosts’ life cycle and may influence their community construction, existence, conservation, reproductive accomplishment and in some cases may lead to extinction. The epidemiology of avian blood parasites in Iran is not well understood, and the previous studies on wild and domestic hosts were performed by morphological method. Due to the some phylogenetic association between birds and human malaria, are concerned by public health scientists.Objectives: The present molecular study was designed to screen haemosporidian parasites (Haemoproteus, Plasmodium and Leucocytozoon) in wild birds to providing a list of the new infected hosts by avian malaria and related haemosporidian parasites.Materials and Methods: In order to detect haemosporidian parasites, 479 base pairs of mtDNA cytb gene was amplified by nested PCR method. 99 bird individuals (of seven bird species) were collected by live capture from northern part of Iran during January to April 2018.Results: The identified parasite lineages sequences belonged to genera Haemoproteus and Plasmodium and the overall infection rate of 5.05% was reported in this study.Conclusion: The analysis of cytb gene sequences demonstrated the presence of new undescribed Haemoproteus lineages and new host records for Plasmodium species in avian blood sampled from Iran. Additional morphological and molecular studies on other birds’ species and vectors in various part of country may shed the light on the undelineated features of haemoparasites, vectors and hosts interactions

کلیدواژه ها:

Vector borne disease ، Malaria ، Anopheles ، Avian ، Iran ، PCR