Differential diagnosis of Eimeria species in farmed Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica)

Similarly to poultry industry, coccidiosis may cause significant economic losses also in the commercial quail industry, an emerging sector undergoing uneven development around the world. Although scant and mostly dated, the available literature reports detailed morphological and morphometric features of both oocysts and sporocysts of the Eimeria species hitherto recognized in Japanese quails, i.e. E. tsunodai, E. uzura, E. bateri, and E. fluminensis. Mixed infections are very common in the field and require an accurate differential diagnosis of diverse species of coccidia, identifying the highly pathogenic ones, in particular E. tsunodai (localized in the caeca), and E. uzura (localized in both caeca and small intestine). This goal is hampered by time-consuming laboratory procedures involving highly qualified staff and facilities, and poorly compatible with routine management practices in farmed quails. A supplemental difficulty is represented by the lack of nucleotide sequences available in GenBank. To overcome these issues, copromicroscopic and molecular analyses (amplifying the 18S rRNA region, and the internal transcribed spacers regions ITS1-5.8rRNA-ITS2) were performed on oocysts populations separately isolated from pools of 12 caecal and 12 cloacal contents collected from 240 naturally infected laying Japanese quails. Data on morphological and morphometric features of 1,000 sporulated oocysts were statistically compared, demonstrating the presence of different Eimeria species colonizing the 2 intestinal tracts. This result was also confirmed by PCR and phylogenetic analysis of the 18S rRNA gene. Overall results allowed to hypothesize the presence of E. uzura in our Japanese quails. Although a certain identification at species level was not obtained, the present study demonstrates that reasonable turnaround times of monitoring procedures performed on Japanese quail farms, shedding light on the in vivo and post-mortem differential diagnosis of coccidiosis can be achieved, and provide obvious benefits in disease understanding and control.