First Serological and Molecular Phylogenetic Confirmation of Feline Leishmaniasis in Iraq

Background: Leishmaniasis, caused by different etiological Leishmania species such as L. infantum, represents an important zoonotic disease of various potential hosts as cat whose roles are largely unclear. This present study aims to serological investigation of leishmaniasis and molecular phylogeny of L. infantum. Materials: Blood samples were collected from totally 91 adult pet cats in Wasit province (Iraq) and examined serologically by the qualitative ELISA, molecularly through PCR and then, the positive DNAs were sequenced and analysed phylogenetically. Result: Findings of serological ELISA revealed that 15.38% of study cats were positive to leishmaniasis at a Cut Off value of ≥0.230. Respectively, the OD values of seropositively and seronegatively samples were 0.369857±0.025774 and 0.172896±0.003906, respectively. Targeting the ITS1 and 5.8S rRNA gene, molecular PCR reported that 9.89% of study cats were infected with L. infantum. Significant prevalence of leishmaniasis was significantly higher by ELISA than PCR with a level of sensitivity and specificity being 100% and 93.9% respectively. Phylogenetically, the study L. infantum isolates were documented in the NCBI-GenBank database (PQ327040.1, PQ327041.1, PQ327042.1, PQ327043.1, PQ327044.1, PQ327045.1, PQ327046.1, PQ327047.1 and PQ327048.1) and comparative analysis with the NCBI-BLAST L. infantum isolates detected the marked significant identity with the Iranian (ID: KF705514.1) and Brazilian (ID: MH231229.1) isolates obtained from dogs.