Babesia bigemina is one of the aetiological agents of bovine babesiosis, which causes economic losses through mortality, loss of production and control costs. Effective means of detecting and quantifying B. bigemina in cattle populations is therefore important to inform control approaches. In order to examine the parasite genetic diversity in African countries, B. bigemina 18S rRNA genes from cattle from South Africa, Uganda and Angola were sequenced. The 25 distinct B. bigemina 18S rRNA gene sequences obtained in this study showed 99 to 100% identity with previously published sequences of strains from African and other continents. The sequences of the previously published B. bigemina 18S rRNA gene-specific quantitative PCR (qPCR) primers and probe, developed based on American and Asian strains, were conserved in the African B. bigemina sequences. The qPCR assay was evaluated using 10-fold and 2-fold serial dilutions of B. bigemina-infected erythrocytes to determine the efficiency and analytical sensitivity. The qPCR assay had an efficiency of 98.14 ± 1.71%, and the limit of detection was approximately 1.5 infected red blood cells (iRBCs) per microlitre (μl) of blood. The detection rate of B. bigemina from duplicates of field-collected blood samples from cattle from South Africa, Mozambique and Angola was 37% (30/81), 12% (6/49) and 50% (38/76), respectively. Reverse line blot hybridisation (RLB) results obtained from the same samples in previous studies, using a previously published B. bigemina-specific probe, detected the parasite DNA in only 1.5% (3/206) of the samples. A new B. bigemina-specific RLB oligonucleotide probe was designed in the hypervariable V4 region of the 18S rRNA gene. Screening of field blood samples from cattle showed that the new probe was specific, and its frequency of detection of B. bigemina was three times higher than the previously published probe. The qPCR assay and the newly developed B. bigemina-specific RLB probe provide good tools for epidemiological studies, which are essential in the control of bovine babesiosis.

巴贝斯bigemina是牛巴贝虫病，这会导致通过死亡率的经济损失，生产和控制成本损失的病因剂中的一种。检测和量化B的有效手段。因此，牛群中的双歧杆菌对控制方法很重要。为了检查非洲国家的寄生虫遗传多样性，B。来自南非，乌干达和安哥拉的牛的bigemina 18S rRNA基因已测序。25不同乙。比格米纳这项研究中获得的18S rRNA基因序列与非洲和其他大洲的先前公布的菌株序列具有99％到100％的同一性。先前发布的B的序列。基于美洲和亚洲菌株开发的bigemina 18S rRNA基因特异性定量PCR（qPCR）引物和探针在非洲B区保存。双子星座序列。使用qPCR测定，评价10倍和2倍的系列稀释乙。比格米纳感染的红细胞，以确定效率和分析灵敏度。qPCR分析的效率为98.14±1.71％，检测极限为每微升（μl）血液约1.5个感染的红细胞（iRBC）。B的检出率。bigemina从来自南非，莫桑比克和安哥拉牛现场采集的血液样本的重复率为37％（81分之30），12％（6/49）和50％（76分之38）。使用先前发表的文献B从先前研究中的相同样品获得的反向线杂交（RLB）结果。bigemina特异性探针仅在1.5％（3/206）的样品中检测到了寄生虫DNA。新乙。比格米纳在18S rRNA基因的高变V4区设计了特异性RLB寡核苷酸探针。对牛的野外血液样本的筛选表明，该新探针具有特异性，其检测B的频率也很高。bigemina比以前发表的探针高三倍。qPCR的测定和新开发的乙。双歧杆菌特异的RLB探针为流行病学研究提供了良好的工具，这对于控制牛杆状杆菌病至关重要。