ORIGINAL PAPER Prevalence and genotyping of Cryptosporidium species from farm animals in Mongolia Byambaa Burenbaatar & Mohammed A. Bakheit & Judit Plutzer & Naoyoshi Suzuki & Ikuo Igarashi & Jerry Ongerth & Panagiotis Karanis Received: 25 September 2007 / Accepted: 5 December 2007 / Published online: 9 February 2008 # Springer-Verlag 2007 Abstract The presence of Cryptosporidium oocysts in 460 animals (439 cattle, 16 kids, and 5 sheep) of Tuv-aimak Mongolian district was investigated by IFT. Cryptosporidium oocysts were found in 116 (26.4%) cattle. Out of the 116 IFT positive samples, 47 were further purified by IMS, investi- gated by PCR and 11 were found positive. The species and/ or genotypes were determined by nested PCR-RFLP and sequence analysis of a fragment of the SSU rRNA gene. The results indicated the presence of Cryptosporidium andersoni in the sequenced samples and C. bovis in two samples as a common infection. No Cryptosporidium oocysts were found in fecal specimens collected from sheep and goats. The present work reports the first data on Cryptosporidium species in animals from Mongolia. Further studies are necessary to understand the epidemiology and transmission of Cryptosporidium in domestic animals in Mongolia. Introduction Cryptosporidiosis is of major public health concern. The role of water and food in the epidemiology of this disease is now well recognized (Fayer 2004; Dawson 2005; Hunter and Thompson 2005; Sunnotel et al. 2006; Karanis et al. 2007a). Currently, 16 Cryptosporidium species are consid- ered to be valid, but C. hominis and C. parvum are detected most commonly in human feces, domestic ruminants, and different kinds of water samples (Xiao et al. 2004; Hunter and Thompson 2005; Slapeta 2006). Molecular tools available to detect and differentiate Cryptosporidium at the genotype and subtype levels have been widely described (Caccio et al. 2000; Sulaiman et al. 2000; Wu et al. 2003; Amar et al. 2004; Santin et al. 2004; Xiao et al. 2002, 2004, 2007; Satoh et al. 2005; Abe et al. 2006; Santin et al. 2007; Feng et al. 2007). Use of sub-typing tools is improving the understanding of population genetics and of Cryptosporidium transmission in a variety of hosts. The use of molecular tools has also enabled identification of geographic and temporal differences in the transmission of Cryptosporidium species, a better appreciation of the public health significance of other Cryptosporidium species/geno- types, and the frequency of infection with mixed genotypes or subtypes. Other investigations have indicated the need for revising taxonomy and for critical assessment of the zoonotic potential of some animal C. parvum isolates (Xiao et al. 2004; Slapeta 2006). Improved molecular identifica- tion and genotyping systems that should be applicable to environmental samples have been recommended (Caccio et al. 2005; Savioli et al. 2006; Smith et al. 2006). A variety of PCR-based techniques have been used for genetic character- ization of Cryptosporidium, and a number of genetic loci have been identified as targets for the detection of species as well as for genotype identification of different Cryptosporidium Parasitol Res (2008) 102:901–905 DOI 10.1007/s00436-007-0847-6 B. Burenbaatar : M. A. Bakheit : J. Plutzer : N. Suzuki : I. Igarashi : P. Karanis (*) National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, 080-8555, Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan e-mail: karanis@obihiro.ac.jp e-mail: panagiotis.karanis@uk-koeln.de P. Karanis Medical and Molecular Parasitology Laboratory, University of Cologne, Medical School, Center of Anatomy, Institute II, Cologne, Germany J. Ongerth Civil Mining & Environmental Engineering, The University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, 2522, Australia