Abstract

Buffalo calves have a high adverse effect on public health, specifically zoonotic Giardiasis in Egypt. The current study was carried out to investigate the use of enzyme-linked immunoelectrotransfer blot technique (EITB) as a preliminary step for the diagnosis of giardiasis before genotyping. For this purpose, fecal and blood samples were collected from diarrheic calves and workers in closed and non-closed beef buffalo farm. Zoonotic Giardia assemblage A was isolated from both diarrheic children and their close contact calves while the calves were infected by animal genotype assemblage E under low contact conditions. This was identified after the amplification and sequencing of a 292 bp fragment of 16S-rRNA ribosomal unit from 20 children and 28 calves Giardia isolates using nested PCR. Fractionation of different isolated Giardia assemblage and identification of specific fraction versus anti-Giardia-IgG antibodies in infected humans or animals using EITB revealed that α-1 giardin antigen with molecular weight ranged 29-34KDa. This specific immunogenic assemblage was fraction-related where it reacted specifically versus antibodies in sera of humans or animals infected by this assemblage and did not cross-react with giardin of other assemblage or with sera of non-infected cases. The results of the current study highlighted the use of EITB as a preliminary investigation before genotyping in the identification of zoonotic giardiasis.