Molecular Characterisation of Giardia, Cryptosporidium, and Entamoeba infecting domestic and feral/stray cats in Jordan

Abstract This study aims to carry out a molecular screening for the presence of Giardia, Cryptosporidium, and/or Entamoeba in the faeces of pet and stray/feral cats in Jordan. G. duodenalis was found in 27.9% (95% CI: 23.2–32.9) of the overall 348 sampled cats, E. histolytica was found in only 0.6% (95% CI: 0.1–2.1) of the cats, while none of the sampled cats had Cryptosporidium infections. The infection rate of G. duodenalis among indoor cats (32.3%) did not differ significantly from that of the outdoor ones (24.1%). The infections were significantly higher (p = 0.0004) geographically in the cold semi-arid areas (67%) compared to that of the cold desert area (24%). Multilocus sequence typing analysis on amplicons based on the bg, TPI, and GDH genes revealed that the majority of G. duodenalis infections were of the zoonotic assemblage B (65.9%; 64 of 97 positive samples), followed by the feline specific assemblage F (18.5%, 18/97), the cattle specific assemblage E (5.2%, 5/97), then assemblage C that is shared with canids (1.0%; 1/97). Within Giardia isolates, a substitution mutation (A/G) was found in position 297 of the complete protein coding sequence (cds) of TPI-BIII, which may represent a new spreading mutation within this gene among the cat population in Jordan. The results of the current study suggest that close human-cat interaction could play a role in zoonotic transmission of Giardia, but further research is needed to rule out the possible contribution of cats in transmission of other protozoa to humans.