A serological investigation and genotyping of Toxoplasma gondii among Iranian blood donors indicates threat to health of blood recipients

Background: Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic disease in animals and human caused by the intracellular obligatory protozoan named Toxoplasma gondii. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sero-molecular prevalence and genotyping T. gondii among healthy blood donors in north of Iran.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 400 blood donors participated from all Blood Transfusion Organization (BTO) in Mazandaran province during October and November 2014. The blood samples were investigated for seroprevalence, DNA detection and genotyping of T. gondii using ELISA, nested-PCR, and Multilocus nested-PCR-RFLP methods respectively.

Results: Among all of blood donors, 294 (73.5 %) and 9 (2.2 %) cases were seropositive for anti-T. gondii IgG and IgM antibodies. T. gondii DNA was detected in 7 samples. Four genotype of T. gondii were identified in blood donors samples (Genotype ToxoDB#1, #2, #10 and #27), which 50 % of T. gondii strains were highly pathogenic.

Conclusions: Taking into account survive T. gondii in blood transfusion bag, the high prevalence of T. gondii and existence of pathogenic genotypes in Iranian blood donors, it seems that T. gondii screening should be performed at the BTO to prevent complications of toxoplasmosis in blood recipients.