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Safer meat for human consumption; vaccination of pigs against Toxoplasma gondii reduces tissue cyst formation

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

The protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a zoonotic pathogen that has the ability to infect all warm blooded animals including humans. Toxoplasmosis is a major opportunistic disease of immunocompromised patients, and also represents a serious threat during pregnancy causing severe foetal abnormalities or potentially leads to problems in childhood or later adult life. Undercooked or raw meat containing infective tissue cysts are a significant source of human infection. The production of T. gondii tissue cyst free meat could reduce the risk of human exposure to T. gondii. A group of 23 pigs were used to determine the efficacy of a commercially available vaccine that protects sheep from abortion caused by T. gondii, with an aim to reduce tissue cyst formation. Following vaccination, animals were challenged with oocysts of the Moredun M4 strain. Subsequently a mouse bioassay, using a variety of porcine tissues, resulted in 100% survival of mice that received tissues from vaccinated/challenged pigs. While bioassays from the non-vaccinated pigs resulted in a survival rate of 51%. Parasite DNA was also identified in the homogenate used in bioassays from the non-vaccinated/challenged group but not in the vaccinated/challenged tissues. These results demonstrate that vaccination of pigs with the S48 attenuated strain of T. gondii can reduce the formation of tissue cysts, resulting in potentially safer meat for human consumption.