Imunodetecção de Toxoplasma gondii em útero gestacional e placenta de tayassuídeos silvestres da Amazônia peruana.

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is a mandatory cosmopolitan and intracellular protozoan that affects endothermic animals, including humans. Transmission can occur through horizontal and vertical routes, the latter, in general, ends up triggering reproductive pathologies. Thus, the objective was to investigate the occurrence of T. gondii in species of the Tayassuidae Family of free life in the Peruvian Amazon, by immunomarking the protozoan in gestational uterus and placenta tissue. For that, the samples of uterine and placental tissue of 36 Pecari tajacu and 42 Tayassu pecari were analyzed by the techniques of histopathology and immunohistochemistry, with the results correlated by the chi-square test. A total of 12 animals were positive (06 P. tajacu and 06 T. pecari). In IHC, T. pecari exhibited 7.14% positivity for T. gondii in gestational uterus and 9.52% in placenta, while P. tajacu presented 11.11% in gestational uterus and 8.33% in placenta. The immunoreactive samples in IHC showed intensity varying from moderate to strong in both organs of the analyzed species, with parasitic forms being observed in the epithelium and uterine and placental connective tissue, but without observing the characteristic lesions in the tissues evaluated by the histotopathology and IHC techniques. With that, it was possible to determine the existence of the circulation of T. gondii in T. pecari and P. tajacu specimens of free life in the Peruvian Amazon, allowing the continuity of the cycle of this parasite in the region's ecosystem and the vertical transmission of the parasite in these species. In addition to being the first research that links the immunodetection of T. gondii in specimens of T. pecari and P. tajacu, analyzing samples of gestational uterus and placenta with IHC detection, which proved to be a highly sensitive technique.