Identification of Sarcocystis parasites in environmental samples collected from Lithuanian livestock farms

Latest research in the Laboratory of Genetics has identified Sarcocystis parasites in the environmental water, hay and soil samples from Lithuanian livestock farms.

The main objective of this study was to identify selected zoonotic Sarcocystis species and species with intermediate hosts as domestic animals in water, hay and soil samples collected from farms and to compare their prevalence in different environments. The environmental samples for this study were collected during the summer period for three years from 10 livestock farms in Lithuania.

After analyzing the data obtained, it was found that, regardless of the year of the study, the probability of infection is higher through water or hay than through soil. In addition, eDNA of five different Sarcocystis species was most often detected in water and hay samples, and an average of three in soil samples.

It was concluded that the occurrence of Sarcocystis species does not depend on the animals raised on the farm. For example, S. cruzi, which infects cattle, was identified in all selected farms in at least one of the study years. In addition, S. cruzi eDNA was most frequently detected over a three-year period among all ten species studied.

Two zoonotic species, S. hominis and S. suihominis, were identified during the study, with cattle and pigs as intermediate hosts, respectively. It is important to emphasize that during this work, zoonotic S. hominis was detected for the first time in environmental samples worldwide, while S. suihominis was detected in Lithuania after a 30-year interval.

An invitation to publish data in the Q1 quartile journal “Food and Waterborne Parasitology” was received by Agnė Baranauskaitė, a doctoral student at the Laboratory of Genetics, when she presented the results at the conference “EMOP 2024” organized by the European Federation of Parasitologists in Wrocław, Poland.