FREE SHIPPING over $40
OVER 9000 FIVE-STAR REVIEWS
5% OFF ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS
100% HAPPINESS GUARANTEE
Analyze Diet
0
Home / Equine Research Bank / Emerg Microbes Infect / An epizootic of Chlamydia psittaci equine reproductive loss ...
Emerging microbes & infections2018; 7(1); 88; doi: 10.1038/s41426-018-0089-y

An epizootic of Chlamydia psittaci equine reproductive loss associated with suspected spillover from native Australian parrots.

Abstract: Chlamydia psittaci is an avian pathogen capable of spill-over infections to humans. A parrot C. psittaci strain was recently detected in an equine reproductive loss case associated with a subsequent cluster of human C. psittaci infections. In this study, we screened for C. psittaci in cases of equine reproductive loss reported in regional New South Wales, Australia during the 2016 foaling season. C. psittaci specific-PCR screening of foetal and placental tissue samples from cases of equine abortion (n = 161) and foals with compromised health status (n = 38) revealed C. psittaci positivity of 21.1% and 23.7%, respectively. There was a statistically significant geographical clustering of cases ~170 km inland from the mid-coast of NSW (P < 0.001). Genomic analysis and molecular typing of C. psittaci positive samples from this study and the previous Australian equine index case revealed that the equine strains from different studs in regional NSW were clonal, while the phylogenetic analysis revealed that the C. psittaci strains from both Australian equine disease clusters belong to the parrot-associated 6BC clade, again indicative of spill-over of C. psittaci infections from native Australian parrots. The results of this work suggest that C. psittaci may be a more significant agent of equine reproductive loss than thought. A range of studies are now required to evaluate (a) the exact role that C. psittaci plays in equine reproductive loss; (b) the range of potential avian reservoirs and factors influencing infection spill-over; and
(c) the risk that these equine infections pose to human health.
Get Full Text
Publication Date: 2018-05-16 PubMed ID: 29765033PubMed Central: PMC5953950DOI: 10.1038/s41426-018-0089-yGoogle Scholar: Lookup
The Equine Research Bank provides access to a large database of publicly available scientific literature. Inclusion in the Research Bank does not imply endorsement of study methods or findings by Mad Barn.
LinkedInCopy
  • Journal Article

Summary

This research summary has been generated with artificial intelligence and may contain errors and omissions. Refer to the original study to confirm details provided. Submit correction.

The research article focuses on investigating the role of Chlamydia psittaci, a pathogen commonly found in parrots, in cases of equine reproductive loss in regional New South Wales, Australia. The study indicates a potential spill-over of the pathogen from parrots to horses, making this an area of concern for equine health.

The Screening Process

  • In this research, the team screened fetal and placental tissue samples from horses that had either experienced an abortion or had foals with compromised health status.
  • The samples were collected during the 2016 foaling season in regional New South Wales, Australia.
  • They used Chlamydia psittaci-specific PCR screening on 161 equine abortions and 38 foals with compromised health.

Finding of the Screening Process

  • They found that 21.1% of the aborted fetuses and 23.7% of the compromised foals were positive for Chlamydia psittaci.
  • There was also a significant geographical clustering of cases about 170km inland from the mid-coast of NSW, implying a potential geographical or environmental influence in the prevalence of the pathogen.

Genomic Analysis

  • Researchers carried out genomic analysis and molecular typing on the positive samples from the study and a previous Australian equine index case.
  • The analysis revealed that the strains of Chlamydia psittaci present in different studs in the region were clonal – they were identical.
  • Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis revealed that the strains of the pathogen found in both equine disease clusters belonged to the parrot-associated 6BC clade, suggesting spill-over infection from native Australian parrots.

Implication

  • The research findings imply that Chlamydia psittaci could be a more significant cause of equine reproductive loss than previously thought.
  • The suspected spill-over from parrots underlines the need for a broader scope of research to explore the exact role of Chlamydia psittaci in equine reproductive loss.
  • Further research should also aim to identify other potential avian reservoirs and the factors that influence infection spill-over.

Cite This Article

APA
Jenkins C, Jelocnik M, Micallef ML, Galea F, Taylor-Brown A, Bogema DR, Liu M, O'Rourke B, Chicken C, Carrick J, Polkinghorne A. (2018). An epizootic of Chlamydia psittaci equine reproductive loss associated with suspected spillover from native Australian parrots. Emerg Microbes Infect, 7(1), 88. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41426-018-0089-y

Publication

Emerging microbes & infections
ISSN: 2222-1751
NlmUniqueID: 101594885
Country: United States
Language: English
Volume: 7
Issue: 1
Pages: 88

Researcher Affiliations

Jenkins, Cheryl
  • NSW Department of Primary Industries, Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, Menangle, NSW, Australia.
Jelocnik, Martina
  • Animal Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, 91 Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs, 4556, QLD, Australia.
Micallef, Melinda L
  • NSW Department of Primary Industries, Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, Menangle, NSW, Australia.
Galea, Francesca
  • NSW Department of Primary Industries, Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, Menangle, NSW, Australia.
Taylor-Brown, Alyce
  • Animal Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, 91 Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs, 4556, QLD, Australia.
Bogema, Daniel R
  • NSW Department of Primary Industries, Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, Menangle, NSW, Australia.
Liu, Michael
  • The ithree Institute, University of Technology, Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia.
O'Rourke, Brendon
  • NSW Department of Primary Industries, Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, Menangle, NSW, Australia.
Chicken, Catherine
  • Scone Equine Hospital, Scone, 2337, NSW, Australia.
Carrick, Joan
  • Equine Specialist Consulting, Scone, 2337, NSW, Australia.
Polkinghorne, Adam
  • Animal Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, 91 Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs, 4556, QLD, Australia. apolking@usc.edu.au.

MeSH Terms

  • Aborted Fetus / microbiology
  • Animals
  • Australia
  • Chlamydophila psittaci / classification
  • Chlamydophila psittaci / genetics
  • Chlamydophila psittaci / isolation & purification
  • DNA, Bacterial / genetics
  • Female
  • Genome, Bacterial / genetics
  • Horse Diseases / microbiology
  • Horses
  • Molecular Typing
  • Parrots
  • Placenta / microbiology
  • Pregnancy
  • Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / microbiology
  • Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / veterinary
  • Psittacosis / microbiology
  • Psittacosis / veterinary

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

References

This article includes 41 references
  1. Knittler MR, Sachse K. Chlamydia psittaci: update on an underestimated zoonotic agent.. Pathog. Dis. 2015;73:1–15.
    doi: 10.1093/femspd/ftu007pubmed: 25853998google scholar: lookup
  2. Branley J, Bachmann NL, Jelocnik M, Myers GSA, Polkinghorne A. Australian human and parrot Chlamydia psittaci strains cluster within the highly virulent 6BC clade of this important zoonotic pathogen.. Sci. Rep. 2016;6:30019.
    doi: 10.1038/srep30019pmc: PMC4973220pubmed: 27488134google scholar: lookup
  3. Chan J. An outbreak of psittacosis at a veterinary school demonstrating a novel source of infection.. One Health 2017;3:29–33.
    doi: 10.1016/j.onehlt.2017.02.003pmc: PMC5454149pubmed: 28616500google scholar: lookup
  4. Taylor-Brown A, Polkinghorne A. New and emerging chlamydial infections of creatures great and small.. New Microbes New Infect. 2017;18:28–33.
    doi: 10.1016/j.nmni.2017.04.004pmc: PMC5436083pubmed: 28560043google scholar: lookup
  5. Wallensten A, Fredlund H, Runehagen A. Multiple human-to-human transmission from a severe case of psittacosis, Sweden, January-February 2013.. Euro. Surveill. 19, pii: 20937 (2014).
    pubmed: 25358043
  6. McGuigan CC, McIntyre PG, Templeton K. Psittacosis outbreak in Tayside, Scotland, December 2011 to February 2012.. Euro Surveill. 17, pii: 20186 (2012).
    pubmed: 22687915
  7. Vanrompay D. Chlamydophila psittaci transmission from pet birds to humans.. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 2007;13:1108–1110.
    doi: 10.3201/eid1307.070074pmc: PMC2878242pubmed: 18214194google scholar: lookup
  8. Telfer BL. Probable psittacosis outbreak linked to wild birds.. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 2005;11:391–397.
    doi: 10.3201/eid1103.040601pmc: PMC3298256pubmed: 15757553google scholar: lookup
  9. Williams J. Community outbreak of psittacosis in a rural Australian town.. Lancet 1998;351:1697–1699.
    doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(97)10444-5pubmed: 9734887google scholar: lookup
  10. Hulin V. Assessment of Chlamydia psittaci shedding and environmental contamination as potential sources of worker exposure throughout the mule duck breeding process.. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2015;82:1504–1518.
    doi: 10.1128/AEM.03179-15pmc: PMC4771335pubmed: 26712548google scholar: lookup
  11. Theegarten D. Chlamydophila spp. infection in horses with recurrent airway obstruction: similarities to human chronic obstructive disease.. Respir. Res. 2008;9:14.
    doi: 10.1186/1465-9921-9-14pmc: PMC2276488pubmed: 18230187google scholar: lookup
  12. Lenzko H. High frequency of chlamydial co-infections in clinically healthy sheep flocks.. BMC Vet. Res. 2011;7:29.
    doi: 10.1186/1746-6148-7-29pmc: PMC3125319pubmed: 21679409google scholar: lookup
  13. Longbottom D, Coulter LJ. Animal chlamydioses and zoonotic implications.. J. Comp. Pathol. 2003;128:217–244.
    doi: 10.1053/jcpa.2002.0629pubmed: 12834606google scholar: lookup
  14. Van Loo H. Detection of Chlamydia psittaci in Belgian cattle with signs of respiratory disease and milk drop syndrome.. Vet. Rec. 2014;175:562.
    pubmed: 25351231
  15. Ostermann C. Infection, disease, and transmission dynamics in calves after experimental and natural challenge with a bovine Chlamydia psittaci isolate.. PLoS ONE 2013;8:e64066.
    doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0064066pmc: PMC3653844pubmed: 23691148google scholar: lookup
  16. Szeredi L, Hotzel H, Sachse K. High prevalence of chlamydial (Chlamydophila psittaci) infection in fetal membranes of aborted equine fetuses.. Vet. Res. Commun. 2005;29:37–49.
    doi: 10.1007/s11259-005-0835-1pubmed: 15943064google scholar: lookup
  17. Di Francesco A. Chlamydophila pneumoniae in horses: a seroepidemiological survey in Italy.. New. Microbiol. 2006;29:303–305.
    pubmed: 17201097
  18. Storey C, Lusher M, Yates P, Richmond S. Evidence for Chlamydia pneumoniae of non-human origin.. J. Gen. Microbiol. 1993;139:2621–2626.
    doi: 10.1099/00221287-139-11-2621pubmed: 8277245google scholar: lookup
  19. Pantchev A, Sting R, Bauerfeind R, Tyczka J, Sachse K. Detection of all Chlamydophila and Chlamydia spp. of veterinary interest using species-specific real-time PCR assays.. Comp. Immunol. Microbiol. Infect. Dis. 2010;33:473–484.
    doi: 10.1016/j.cimid.2009.08.002pubmed: 19733907google scholar: lookup
  20. Polkinghorne A, Greub G. A new equine and zoonotic threat emerges from an old avian pathogen. Chlamydia psittaci.. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. 2017;23:693–694.
    doi: 10.1016/j.cmi.2017.05.025pubmed: 28583739google scholar: lookup
  21. Henning K, Sachse K, Sting R. Demonstration of Chlamydia from an equine abortion.. Dtsch. Tierarztl. Wochenschr. 2000;107:49–52.
    pubmed: 10743333
  22. Jelocnik M. Multilocus sequence typing identifies an avian-like Chlamydia psittaci strain involved in equine placentitis and associated with subsequent human psittacosis.. Emerg. Microbes Infect. 2017;6:e7.
    doi: 10.1038/emi.2016.135pmc: PMC5322323pubmed: 28196971google scholar: lookup
  23. Taylor KA. Equine chlamydiosis-An emerging infectious disease requiring a one health surveillance approach.. Zoonoses Public. Health. 2017;65:218–221.
    doi: 10.1111/zph.12391pubmed: 28984040google scholar: lookup
  24. Jelocnik M. Development and evaluation of rapid novel isothermal amplification assays for important veterinary pathogens: Chlamydia psittaci and Chlamydia pecorum.. PeerJ 2017;5:e3799.
    doi: 10.7717/peerj.3799pmc: PMC5592900pubmed: 28929022google scholar: lookup
  25. Knittler MR. Chlamydia psittaci: new insights into genomic diversity, clinical pathology, host–pathogen interaction and anti-bacterial immunity.. Int. J. Med. Microbiol. 2014;304:877–893.
    doi: 10.1016/j.ijmm.2014.06.010pubmed: 25082204google scholar: lookup
  26. Read TD. Comparative analysis of Chlamydia psittaci genomes reveals the recent emergence of a pathogenic lineage with a broad host range.. mBio 2013;4:pii: e00604–pii: e00612.
    doi: 10.1128/mBio.00604-12pmc: PMC3622922pubmed: 23532978google scholar: lookup
  27. McCauley LME, Lancaster MJ, Butler KL, Ainsworth CGV. Serological analysis of Chlamydophila abortus in Australian sheep and implications for the rejection of breeder sheep for export.. Aust. Vet. J. 2010;88:32–38.
    doi: 10.1111/j.1751-0813.2009.00536.xpubmed: 20148825google scholar: lookup
  28. Bocklisch H, Ludwig C, Lange S. Chlamydia as the cause of abortions in horses.. Berl. Munch. Tierarztl. Wochenschr. 1991;104:119–124.
    pubmed: 2064596
  29. Pannekoek Y. Multi locus sequence typing of Chlamydia reveals an association between Chlamydia psittaci genotypes and host species.. PLoS ONE 2010;5:e14179.
    doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014179pmc: PMC2996290pubmed: 21152037google scholar: lookup
  30. Burnet FM. Enzootic psittacosis amongst wild australian parrots.. J. Hyg. 1935;35:412–420.
    doi: 10.1017/S0022172400032435pmc: PMC2170915pubmed: 20475292google scholar: lookup
  31. Jelocnik M, Jenkins C, O’Rourke B, Barnwell J, Polkinghorne A. Molecular evidence to suggest pigeon-type Chlamydia psittaci in association with an equine foal loss.. Transbound. Emerg. Dis. 65, 911-915 (2018).
    pubmed: 29352509
  32. Madico G, Quinn TC, Boman J, Gaydos CA. Touchdown enzyme time release-PCR for detection and identification of Chlamydia trachomatis, C. pneumoniae, and C. psittaci using the 16S and 16S-23S spacer rRNA genes.. J. Clin. Microbiol. 2000;38:1085–1093.
    pmc: PMC86346pubmed: 10699002
  33. Diallo IS, Hewitson G, Wright L, Rodwell BJ, Corney BG. Detection of equine herpesvirus type 1 using a real-time polymerase chain reaction.. J. Virol. Methods. 2006;131:92–98.
    doi: 10.1016/j.jviromet.2005.07.010pubmed: 16137772google scholar: lookup
  34. Team RC. R. :. A language and environment for statistical computing.. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing; 2013.
  35. Bankevich A. SPAdes: A new genome assembly algorithm and its applications to single-cell sequencing.. J. Comput. Biol. 2012;19:455–477.
    doi: 10.1089/cmb.2012.0021pmc: PMC3342519pubmed: 22506599google scholar: lookup
  36. Wu YW, Simmons BA, Singer SW. MaxBin 2.0: an automated binning algorithm to recover genomes from multiple metagenomic datasets.. Bioinformatics 2016;32:605–607.
    doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btv638pubmed: 26515820google scholar: lookup
  37. Parks DH, Imelfort M, Skennerton CT, Hugenholtz P, Tyson GW. CheckM: assessing the quality of microbial genomes recovered from isolates, single cells, and metagenomes.. Genome Res. 2015;25:1043–1055.
    doi: 10.1101/gr.186072.114pmc: PMC4484387pubmed: 25977477google scholar: lookup
  38. Kearse M. Geneious Basic: an integrated and extendable desktop software platform for the organization and analysis of sequence data.. Bioinformatics 2012;28:1647–1649.
    doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/bts199pmc: PMC3371832pubmed: 22543367google scholar: lookup
  39. Aziz RK. The RAST Server: rapid annotations using subsystems technology.. BMC Genom. 2008;9:75.
    doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-9-75pmc: PMC2265698pubmed: 18261238google scholar: lookup
  40. Pannekoek Y. Multi locus sequence typing of Chlamydiales: clonal groupings within the obligate intracellular bacteria Chlamydia trachomatis.. BMC Microbiol. 2008;8:42.
    doi: 10.1186/1471-2180-8-42pmc: PMC2268939pubmed: 18307777google scholar: lookup
  41. Huelsenbeck JP, Ronquist F. MRBAYES: Bayesian inference of phylogenetic trees.. Bioinformatics 2001;17:754–755.
    doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/17.8.754pubmed: 11524383google scholar: lookup
Subscribe to our newsletter
Join 99,344 horse owners like you who receive our email updates on horse health and nutrition.