1996 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 13-20
Benign bovine Theileria parasite, which is presumed to be of T. sergenti / T. buffeli / T. orientalis group, is distributed in Asia, Europe and Australia. An immunodominant major piroplasm surface protein (MPSP) gene of the parasites was analyzed and most of the parasite stocks and isolates were found to contain more than two different allelic types of MPSP. Parasite populations of a field isolate of benign Theileria species collected from Australian calf was analyzed by using allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR), DNA restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and DNA sequencing. MPSP types of B1- and C- parasites were detected in the Australian samples. Nucleotide sequence of the gene of Australian C- type MPSP was similar to that of Japanese C- type parasite (T. sergenti) with 98.5% homology at nucleotide level. The study showed that Australian benign Theileria parasites are composed of a combination with at least 2 types of parasite one of which is similar to C- type of T. sergenti.