Submitted to: Veterinary Parasitology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: December 9, 1997
Publication Date: N/A
Interpretive Summary: Humans and animals become infected the single celled parasite Toxoplasma gondii by ingesting food or water contaminated with oocysts (resistant stage) from cat feces or by infesting uncooked infected meat infected with tissue cysts. Among food animals, Toxoplasma food animals, Toxoplasma infection is more common in sheep, goats, and pigs than in cattle. The number of Toxoplasma organisms in food animals is low (usually 1 tissue cyst per 50 gm of meat). Therefore, to demonstrate T. gondii in meat a concentration method is used. A scientist at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center has developed a simple method to recover T. gondii from meat, based on digestion in pepsin and then bioassay in mice. This method will be useful to parasitologists and public health workers.
Technical Abstract:
Modification of the acid pepsin digestion procedure to isolate Toxoplasma gondii from animal muscular tissues is described. Muscles were incubated for 60 minutes instead of 90 minutes and acid was neutralized with 1.2% (w/8)sodium bicarbonate instead by repeated washings and centrifugations.
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