Theileria parva: a parasite of African buffalo, which has adapted to infect and undergo transmission in cattle.

Theileria parva: a parasite of African buffalo, which has adapted to infect and undergo transmission in cattle. Int J Parasitol. 2020 Feb 04;: Authors: Ivan Morrison W, Hemmink JD, Toye PG Abstract The tick-borne protozoan parasite Theileria parva causes an acute, often fatal disease in cattle throughout a large part of eastern and southern Africa. Infection of African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is also widespread in this region but does not cause clinical disease in this species. This difference most likely reflects the evolutionary history of the parasites in these species, in that cattle were only introduced into Africa within the last 8,000 years. In both hosts, T. parva establishes a carrier state, involving persistence of small numbers of parasites for many months following the acute phase of infection. This persistence is considered important for maintaining the parasite populations. Although cattle and buffalo parasites both produce severe disease when transmitted to cattle, the buffalo-derived parasites are usually not transmissible from infected cattle. Recent studies of the molecular and antigenic composition of T. parva, in addition to demonstrating heterogeneity in the populations in both host species, have revealed that infections in individual animals are genotypically mixed. The results of these studies have also shown that buffalo T. parva exhibit much greater genotypic diversity than the cattle population and indicat...
Source: International Journal for Parasitology - Category: Parasitology Authors: Tags: Int J Parasitol Source Type: research