Research Article

 

Serological Study on Chlamydophila abortus in Camelus dramedarius using ELISA

 

Khawlah M. Imran Al-Rubaye*, Jenan M. Khalaf, Saba Thamermosa

Department of Internal and Preventive Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Baghdad University, Iraq.

 

Editor | Kuldeep Dhama, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Received | March 06, 2018; Accepted | May 28, 2018; Published | August 07, 2018

*Correspondence | Khawlah M Imran Al-Rubaye, Department of Internal and Preventive Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Baghdad University, Iraq; Email: drkhawlahalhekma@gmail.com

Citation | Al-Rubaye KMI, Khalaf JM, Thamermosa S (2018). Serological study on chlamydophila abortus in camelus dramedarius using elisa. Adv. Anim. Vet. Sci. 6(8): 325-327.

DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.aavs/2018/6.8.325.327

ISSN (Online) | 2307-8316; ISSN (Print) | 2309-3331

Copyright © 2018 Al-Rubaye et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

 

Introduction

 

Chlamydia is an obligate intercellular Gram negative coccobacilli bacteria (Radostits et al., 2007). Chlamydia abortus is one of the main reasons of abortion in livestock including camelids (Ali et al., 2012).The bacteria are non-spore-forming, but its elementary bodies act like spores when released into the host (Aljumaah and Hussein, 2012).Chlamydia is one of the important pathogens of animals, birds and humans (Elzlitne, and Elhafi, 2016). It constitutes nine species – C. trachomatis, C.muridarum, C.suis, C.psittaci, C.pecorum, C. abortus, C.caveae, C.felisand C. pneumoniae, eight of which can infect animals and cause disease (Samkange et al., 2010). Chlamydial species may cause several diseases such as enteritis, pneumonia, encephalitis, polyarthritis, abortion, mastitis, other urogenital tract infection and conjunctivitis (Swelum et al., 2014; Hussein et al., 2008). Chlamydiae infects male genital organs of ruminants, as well as it could cause prostatitis and epididymitis in men (Wagenlehner et al., 2006). Previous studies revealed scarce information concerning sero-prevalence of chlamydiosis in Iraqi camelids. Consequently, this study intended to investigate the sero-prevalence of natural infection of chlamydiosis in Camelus dromedarius in Iraq and its effect on some hematological and biochemical parameters.

 

Material and methods

 

Samples Collection

A total of sixty (n=60) blood samples were collected from both sexes (38 female and 22 male) aged 5 to 12 years of age that slaughtered in the abattoirs during a period extended from June 2015 to September 2016. Twenty milliliters blood sample was collected from each animal and placed intotest tubes (with and without anticoagulant). Blood samples were transported in a cold box to a laboratory. Serum samples were collected after centrifugation of blood at test tubes without anticoagulant at 3000 rpm for 5 minutes. The sera were kept in Eppendorf tubes at -20ºC until used for detection of C. abortus antibodies using an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and other serological examination. Plasma samples were isolated from blood samples with anticoagulant used for detection of alkaline phosphatase, creatinine kinas, glucose, chloride and zinc. Moreover, neutrophils percentage and other hematological investigation including Hb, MCV, MCHC were also done.

 

ELISA Test

IDEXX Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent assay using an ELISA kit (IDEXX Swizerland) were done for all serum samples according to the instruction of the manufacturing.

 

Results

 

Total examined serum samples were 6o that constituted 22 and 38 for male and female respectively. All male samples (22 out of 22) of were negative in IDEXX ELISA. While, 18 out of 38 female serum samples in percentage of (47.36%) revealed positive results for Chlamydophila abortus antibodies in IDEXX ELISA. The total percentage of positive samples was 30% (18 out of 60) (Table 1).

 

Table 1: shows the positive and negative results of examined serum samples using IDEXX ELISA

 

	Samples No.	Positive	Percentage
Female	38	18	47. 36%
Male	22	Zero	-
Total	60	18	30%

 

The IDEXX ELISA positive she-camels were also revealed changes in the hematological and biochemical tests. The levels of total hemoglobin concentration, hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and neutrophils were (16% gm/dL), (37%), mean (39% U) and (74%) respectively. Moreover, levels of alkaline phosphatase, creatinine kinase and aspartate aminotransferase were (70% IU/I), (1.89.00% IU/I) and (69 IU/I) that revealed significant result statistically. A reduction in levels of glucose (40 mg/dL), chloride (105mmol/L), and zinc (40 ug/dL) were also observed in the affected camels (Table 2 and 3).

 

Table 2: Hematological parameters in ELISA Negative camels and ELISA she-positive camels for chlamydia (Mean ± SE)

 

Parameters	Normal	In ELISA she-positive camel
Total hemoglobin concentration (g/dL)	11.34 ± 0.95	16 ± 0.75
Packed cell volume (PCV hematocrit)	32.83 ± 3.76	37 ± 3.11
Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) %	17.80 ± 2.21	39 ± 2.22
Neutrophils %	43.60±1.30	74 ± 1.41

 

 

Table 3: Biochemical parameters in ELISA Negative camels and ELISA she-positive camels for chlamydia (Mean ± SE)

 

	In ELISA Negative camels	In ELISA she-positive camels
Zn	9±3.66	8±8.45
Alkaline phosphatase(IU/I)	196±27.5	197±78.6
Creatinine kinase (mg/dL)	0.95±0.18	1.24±0.10
Glucose (mg\dL)	74.6±9.11	60.42±9.66
Choloride (mg/dL)	2.36±0.53	1.95±0.90

 

Discussion

 

Camel is one of the important Iraqi livestock that plays vital role in the social and economic life of Bedouins in several provinces. In Iraq, camel breeding still suffering from poor veterinary service and lack of facilities that help in raising camel accompanied with the changing of environment due to global warming and decreased of water resources (Al Salihi, 2016; Mudhar et al., 2016). One of the most important causes of infectious abortion in animals and human is chlamydiosis (Radostits et al., 2007). It is responsible on great economic loss due to abortion and death of fetus. Chlamydophila abortus is a causative agent, it is a Gram negative intracellular bacteria. Abortion is the important symptom that occur at late pregnancy in 20 -50% of infected sheep and accompanied with stillbirths, infertility, polyarthritis, pneumonia, enteritis, mastitis, encephalitis and conjunctivitis (Aitken, 2008; Aljummah and Hussein, 2012). According to OIE, (2012) placentitis, necrotic changes in cotyledons and decrease in milk production may also occur. an In this study, 30 % (18/60) camels were infected with C. abortus we agree with Elzlitne and Elhafi, (2016) reported an overall 12.25% prevalence of antibodies against chlamydiosis in the Libyan dromedary camel, which was lower than that of this study. Both female and male can infected with C. abortus and male get infection via coitus with infected female. The results of the current study detected the presence of anti-chlamydial antibodies only in serum of the female 47. 36% (18/38) with total percentage 30% (18/ 60), while all male serum were negative. This result is compatible with previous study in Egypt and Tunisia that revealed 11% and 7.6 % positive results of the examined camel’s serum respectively (Hussein et al., 2008; Burgemeister et al., 1975). Moreover, the result of the current study is in agreement with Wernery and Wernery, (1990), who detected C. abortusantibodies in the serum of racing and breeding camels in the UAE, with respective prevalence rates of 15 and 24%, respectively. In Saudi Arabia, the sero-prevalence of chlamydiosis was 19.4% with a lower prevalence in male than female (Hussein et al., 2008).The examined male camel’s serum were negative in the present study that arein agreement with Hussein et al. (2008). However, Teankum et al. (2007) reported that male camels might be incriminated in transmitting the chlamydial infection. The results of the current study also revealed a significant increase in hemoglobin concentration, Mean corpuscular volume (MCV), Neutrophils percentages, Alkaline phosphatase Creatinine kinase, these results are in agreement with Elzlitne and Elhafi, (2016). These alterations occurred due to C. abortus infection and could be attributed to stimulation of bone marrow stem cells due to Chlamydial infection (Ismael et al., 2016). Moreover, there were significant decrease in Chloride, Zinc, Glucose levels, these results are compatible with Zaher et al. (2017). In conclusion, this study is the first preliminary study on seroprevalence of C. abortus in Iraqi camel (Camelus dromedarius). She- camels were positive in a percentage of 30 %, while all male were negative. Moreover, all seropositive animals were revealed changes in the hematological and biochemical parameters. The authors recommend more other seroprevalnace future studies on Chlamidya abortus in the camel (Camelus dromedarius) in Iraq, accompanied with molecular studies (PCR) to investigate the occurrence of chlamydophilosisin camelids.

 

Acknowledgements

 

The authors would like to thanks the workers in the abattoir for helping in collecting of blood samples from animals.

 

Conflict of interest

 

The authors have not declared any conflict of interests for the third party.

 

Authors Contribution

 

All authors contributed equally.

 

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