Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Molecular detection of Strongyloides ratti in faecal samples from wild rats in Serdang, Malaysia

Khalid Jameel Kadhim Al-Zihiry^1,2, Mahmuda Aliyu^1,3, Salman Sahab Atshan⁴, Zasmy Unyah¹, Zaid Osama Ibraheem⁵, Roslaini Abdul Majid¹, Rukman Awang Hamat¹, Wan Omar Abdullah¹

¹Medical Parasitology and Entomology Unit, Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 47300 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia; ²Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine, Thi-Qar University, Iraq; ³Department of Parasitology and Entomology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Usmanu, Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria; ⁴College of Nursing, Basrah University, Basrah, Iraq; ⁵Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of Medicine and Health Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 47300 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

For correspondence:- Khalid Al-Zihiry Email:

Received: 18 March 2015 Accepted: 7 June 2015 Published: 29 July 2015

Citation: Al-Zihiry KJ, Aliyu M, Atshan SS, Unyah Z, Ibraheem ZO, Majid RA, et al. Molecular detection of Strongyloides ratti in faecal samples from wild rats in Serdang, Malaysia. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(7):1167-1173 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i7.7

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To detect Strongyloides ratti in faecal samples using conventional methods and to confirm the identification using a sensitive and specific method, namely, polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

Methods: A PCR method targeting the small subunit of the rRNA gene was performed in this study for the detection of DNA from Strongyloides ratti (an animal model of S. stercoralis) in faecal samples of wild Brown rats, Rattus norvegicus.

Results: Strongyloides ratti was detected in 34.2 % of collected rats by different conventional techniques and confirmed by PCR. The essay presented 100 % sensitivity with Strongyloides universal primer.

Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that the application of PCR with universal primer is a very sensitive methodology to detect S. ratti in faecal material of wild rats infected even with very low parasite burden.

Keywords: Faecal, Parasite, Strongyloides stercoralis, Strongyloides ratti, Brown rat, DNA, Universal primer