Diagnostic study of toxoplasma gondii in students of Thi-Qar University-Iraq by real-time PCR

الملخص EN

Toxoplasma gondii is a unique intracellular parasite, which infect a large proportion of the world, population, but clinically un commonly causes significant disease.

The present study was performed for the first time in Thi-Qar province to estimate the prevalence of toxoplasmosis among university students .

Venous blood samples were collected from 319 (111 males and 208 females) apparently healthy students ,they have ages between (18-42) years attended from different colleges of Thi-Qar university-Iraq, during the period from October 2013 to April 2014.

Enzyme linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA), was used to evaluate the presence of anti-Toxoplasma IgM and IgG antibodies and detection of B1 gene of T.gondii DNA by Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction(RT-PCR).

The results indicated that 70 (21.94%) of students were exposed positive for anti-Toxoplasma antibodies,17 (5.33 %) of them had IgM,38 (11.91 %) had IgG, and 15 (4.70 %) had both IgM and IgG.

Statistically, significant difference between them.

The results showed significant difference between males and females in rate of positive for anti- Toxoplasma antibodies, which recorded 24 (7.52 %) and 46 (14.42 %) respectively .

Besides the serological diagnosis of T.gondii Real-Time PCR (RT-PCR) technique was used to confirm the infection with T.gondii by detection B1 gene of T.gondii DNA in the blood of students.

out of 319 students only 6.26% showed positive toxoplasmosis among those 8 (2.50 %)were males and 12(3.76 %) were females.

The positive result in RT-PCR analysis were distributed on the patterns of the anti-Toxoplasma antibodies by ELISA test , it was no found any positive blood samples with IgM,IgG and both IgM and IgG respectively whereas 20 positive cases of no anti–Toxoplasma antibodies.

Real-Time PCR test in blood of students has advantages in detection of recent or active toxoplasmosis.