Development Of Novel Multiplex PCR For Rapid Diagnosis Of Coinfected Hemo-Parasites In Cattle

A novel, rapid and specific multiplex polymerase chain reaction has been developed for the diagnosis of hemo-parasitic infection in bovine blood by three of the most common hemo-parasites. The reported method relied on the detection of the three different bovine hemoparasites isolated from red blood cells (RBCs) of cattle by conventional Giemsa stained blood smear (GSBS) and confirmed by multiplex PCR. The designed multiplex primer sets can amplify 205, 313 and 422 bp fragments of apocytochrome b, sporozoite and macroschizont 2 (spm2) and 16S rRNA gene for Babesia bigemina, Theileria annulata and Anaplasma marginale , respectively. This multiplex PCR was sensitive with the ability to detect the presence of 150 ng of genomic DNA. The primers used in this multiplex PCR also showed highly specific amplification of specific gene fragments of each respective parasite DNA without the presence of non-specific and non-target PCR products. This multiplex PCR system was used to diagnose GSBS confirmed blood samples (N=12) found infected or co-infected with hemoparasites. A comparison of the two detection methods revealed that 58.33% of specimens showed concordant diagnoses with both techniques. The specificity, positive predictive value and kappa coefficient of agreement was highest for diagnosis of B. bigemina and lowest for A. marginale . The overall Kappa coefficient for diagnosis based on GSBS for multiple pathogen compared to multiplex PCR was 0.56 slightly behind the threshold of 0.6 of agreement. Therefore, confirmation should always be made based on PCR to rule out false positive due to differences in subjective observations, stain particles and false negative due to low level of parasitaemia. The simplicity and rapidity of this specific multiplex PCR method make it suitable for large-scale epidemiological studies and for follow-up of drug treatments. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.