Bacillus cereus infection outbreak in captive psittacines S.N. Godoy a,1 , E.R. Matushima a , J.Q. Chaves b , C.F.G. Cavados b , L. Rabinovitch b , R.H.F. Teixeira c , A.L.V. Nunes c , P. Melville a , M.A. Gattamorta a , A.M. Vivoni b, * a Faculdade de Medicina Veterina ´ria e Zootecnia da Universidade de Sa˜o Paulo, Av. Prof. Dr. Orlando Marques Paiva, 87 – Cidade Universita ´ria, Sa˜o Paulo, SP, Brazil b Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Fundac ¸a˜o Oswaldo Cruz, Av. Brasil, 4365, Pavilha˜o Rocha Lima, sl 312, Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil c Parque Zoolo ´gico Municipal Quinzinho de Barros, Rua Teodoro Kaisel, 883, Sorocaba, SP, Brazil 1. Introduction Psittacines are birds that may be found all over the globe, from tropical to very cold regions. Around 100 species are found in South America, 80 of them in Brazil. Brazil is considered to be the country that harbors more species of the Psitacidae family in the world. Indeed, its first maps, dated from the 1500s, called it ‘‘Land of the Parrots’’ (Brasilia sive terra papagallorum). Brazil harbors the biggest individuals in this group of birds, the macaws. Among them, the blue and gold macaw, Ara ararauna, two scarlet ones, Ara macao and Ara chloroptera, and three hyacinth macaws, Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus, Anodor- hynchus leari and Anodorhynchus glaucus (Collar, 1997; Sick, 1997). Species in the genus Bacillus are widely distributed and are considered to be part of normal microbiota of the respiratory and digestive tract of birds being commonly isolated from psittacines (Dorrestein, 1997; Gerlach, 1994). Bacillus cereus is a Gram-positive, sporulated bacterium widely distributed in several environments such as soil and plants and is commonly isolated from food and additives (Abriouel et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2009). Many B. cereus strains cause food poisoning and other infections. Two main types of food poisoning have been described: emetic, caused by a small cyclic heat-stable peptide, cereulide (Agata et al., 1995; Ehling-Schulz et al., 2004), and Veterinary Microbiology 161 (2012) 213–217 A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 8 May 2012 Received in revised form 19 July 2012 Accepted 20 July 2012 Keywords: Captive psittacines Bacillus cereus Outbreak Molecular typing Enterotoxins A B S T R A C T This study reports an uncommon epizootic outbreak of Bacillus cereus that caused the sudden death of 12 psittacines belonging to the species Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus (1 individual), Diopsittaca nobilis (1 individual), Ara severa (1 individual) and Ara ararauna (9 individuals) in a Brazilian zoo. Post-mortem examination of the animals reveled extensive areas of lung hemorrhage, hepatic congestion, hemorrhagic enteritis and cardiac congestion. Histopathological examination of the organs showed the presence of multiple foci of vegetative cells of Gram-positive bacilli associated with discrete and moderate mononuclear inflammatory cell infiltrate. Seventeen B. cereus strains isolated from blood and sterile organs of nine A. ararauna were analyzed in order to investigate the genetic diversity (assessed by Rep-PCR) and toxigenic profiles (presence of hblA, hblC and hblD; nheA, nheB and nheC as well as cytK, ces and entFM genes) of such strains. Amplification of genomic DNA by Rep-PCR of B. cereus strains generated two closely related profiles (Rep- PCR types A and B) with three bands of difference. All strains were classified as belonging to the toxigenic profile I which contained HBL and NHE gene complexes, entFM and cytK genes. Altogether, microbiological and histopathological findings and the evidence provided by the success of the antibiotic prophylaxis, corroborate that B. cereus was the causative agent of the infection that killed the birds. ß 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 21 25621637; fax: +55 21 25621640. E-mail address: avivoni@ioc.fiocruz.br (A.M. Vivoni). 1 Present address: CENAP-ICMBio – Estrada Municipal Hisaichi Takebayashi 8.600, Bairro da Usina, Atibaia, SP, Brazil. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Veterinary Microbiology jo u rn al ho m epag e: ww w.els evier.c o m/lo cat e/vetmic 0378-1135/$ – see front matter ß 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vetmic.2012.07.032