First report of fatal disseminated microsporidiosis in two inland bearded dragons Pogona vitticeps in Japan

Kojiro Shibasaki; Toshihiro Tokiwa; Akihiro Sukegawa; Hirotaka Kondo; Kenichi Tamukai; Yumiko Haga; Kazunori Ike

doi:10.1099/jmmcr.0.005089

Volume 4, Issue 4

Case Report

Open Access

First report of fatal disseminated microsporidiosis in two inland bearded dragons Pogona vitticeps in Japan

Kojiro Shibasaki^1,†, Toshihiro Tokiwa^2,†, Akihiro Sukegawa¹, Hirotaka Kondo³, Kenichi Tamukai⁴, Yumiko Haga² and Kazunori Ike²
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Affiliations: ¹ Allieys Animal Hospital, 1-30-3 Sasazuka, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan ² Laboratory of Veterinary Parasitology, Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University, 1-7-1 Kyonancho, Musashino, Tokyo, Japan ³ Synergy Animal General Hospital, 815 Ishigami, Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan ⁴ Den-en-chofu Animal Hospital, 2-1-3 Denenchofu, Ota-ku, Tokyo, Japan
*Correspondence: Toshihiro Tokiwa, [email protected]

† These authors contributed equally to this work.
Published: 12 April 2017 https://doi.org/10.1099/jmmcr.0.005089

Abstract

Introduction. Encephalitozoon pogonae is a newly described pathogen belonging to the phylum Microsporidia. In Austria and the USA, this species has been isolated from fatal and disseminated cases of captive-bred inland bearded dragons. Here, we report the case of fatal disseminated microsporidiosis caused by E. pogonae in two bearded dragons in Japan.

Case Presentation. The two lizards from different private households in Tokyo, Japan, had been brought to an animal hospital for examination. In both cases, the animal presented with a history of weight loss for several weeks. There were no improvements in clinical symptoms and the lizards deteriorated and finally died. Histopathological examination demonstrated necrotizing granulomatous inflammation attributed to disseminated microsporidian infection. Nucleotide sequencing of the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer region identified the microsporidian as E. pogonae with sequence identity of 100 %.

Conclusion. We report the first case, to our knowledge, of disseminated microsporidiosis caused by E. pogonae in inland bearded dragons in Japan. Although it is difficult to diagnose prenatally since the signs are nonspecific, the disease should be considered in the differential diagnosis of chronic infections that do not respond to antibiotics.

Received: 02/02/2017
Accepted: 20/03/2017
Published Online: 12/04/2017

Keyword(s): disseminated infection , Encephalitozoon , inland bearded dragons , microsporidia , Pogona vitticeps and reptile

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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First report of fatal disseminated microsporidiosis in two inland bearded dragons Pogona vitticeps in Japan

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Volume 4, Issue 4

Case Report

Open Access

First report of fatal disseminated microsporidiosis in two inland bearded dragons Pogona vitticeps in Japan

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