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Toltrazuril treatment to control diaplacental Neospora caninum transmission in experimentally infected pregnant mice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2004

B. GOTTSTEIN ,
G. R. RAZMI ,
P. AMMANN ,
H. SAGER  and
N. MÜLLER
B. GOTTSTEIN
Affiliation:
Institute of Parasitology, University of Berne, Länggass-Strasse 122, CH-3012 Berne, Switzerland
G. R. RAZMI
Affiliation:
Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran
P. AMMANN
Affiliation:
Institute of Parasitology, University of Berne, Länggass-Strasse 122, CH-3012 Berne, Switzerland
H. SAGER
Affiliation:
Institute of Parasitology, University of Berne, Länggass-Strasse 122, CH-3012 Berne, Switzerland
N. MÜLLER
Affiliation:
Institute of Parasitology, University of Berne, Länggass-Strasse 122, CH-3012 Berne, Switzerland
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Abstract

We addressed the question whether diaplacental transmission of Neospora caninum can be controlled by metaphylactic chemotherapy using toltrazuril or enrofloxacin. Female C57/BL6 mice, infected on day 10 of pregnancy, were medicated for 6 consecutive days p.i. with 52·5 mg toltrazuril or – as an out-group control medication – 16·7 mg enrofloxacin per kg body weight per day. Other control groups received either infection but no medication or vice versa. Toltrazuril treatment significantly reduced pre- and perinatal losses (10 deliveries of healthy newborns, versus 1 abortion and 4 failures) when compared to control-enrofloxacin (2 deliveries, versus 1 abortion, 7 failures and 2 pre-parturient deaths of dams) and non-treated animals (3 deliveries, versus 6 abortions, 8 failures and 4 pre-parturient deaths). Simultaneously, PCR-based parasite detection in the brain of mothers, histopathological findings as well as clinical fatality were significantly less frequent in toltrazuril-treated dams. The overall toltrazuril treatment efficacy was determined as 87%, that of enrofloxacin-treatment as 17%. The progenies of toltrazuril-treated dams also exhibited a very low rate of PCR-positivity in their brain (3 out of 39), whereas untreated dams delivered litters with mostly PCR-positive brains (12 out of 14) and a relatively high death rate post-partum (5 out of 19 newborns died). Mice subjected to a second mating delivered newborns all negative by N. caninum-PCR, indicating that diaplacental tachyzoite passage does not occur in a later, repeated pregnancy. Overall, our experiments showed that toltrazuril-treatment of an acute N. caninum-infection – induced during pregnancy – results in a clear reduction of fetal losses and a marked reduction of diaplacental passage of the parasite to the fetal brain, whereas enrofloxacin, as an out-group control substance, failed to show the same effect.

Keywords

neosporosistoltrazurilenrofloxacinmousepregnancy
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 130 , Issue 1 , January 2005 , pp. 41 - 48
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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