Neospora caninum in goats from Iraq: A serological and molecular study

Background: Neospora caninum is an Apicomplexa parasite that is an important abortive infectious agent in cattle, goats, and other domestic and wild animals. Aim: This study aimed to identify N. caninum using Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and polymerase Methods: This study was conducted to identify N. caninum in blood and milk samples of 138 goats (92 blood and 46 milk samples) from suspected infected goats in Al-Diwaniyah Province, Iraq. Two techniques were used; ELISA and PCR (NC5-gene-based and partial sequencing), and the recorded data were categorized into age, sex, and region. Results: ELISA results revealed that the seroprevalence rates were 14.13% (13/92) in blood and 21.73% (10/46) in milk samples. The PCR results demonstrated that for the blood samples, 3/45 (6.66%) and 2/47 (4.25%) were positive for males and females, respectively. The PCR milk findings showed that the highest rates were 3/20 (15%) and 1/26 (3.84%) in the 2-4 and 4-6 age groups, respectively. Sequencing demonstrated close identities of the examined isolates to those from New Zealand and Australia for the blood and milk samples. Conclusions: The findings of this study reveal that N. caninum is widely distributed in goats, which could be an important source of zoonosis in the tested areas. The phylogenetic analysis shows a shared ancestor between the study isolates and those from New Zealand and Australia.