Genetic diversity of Cryptosporidium parvum in neonatal calves in Xinjiang, China

Background: The Cryptosporidium causes infection in wide spectrum of vertebrate hosts and is well known for leading to diarrhea and other gastrointestinal illness. To assess Cryptosporidium genetic diversity in neonatal calves and probe the cause for diarrhea of them, a total of 232 fecal samples from neonatal calves in 12 farms in Xinjiang were characterized for the presence of Cryptosporidium .Results The prevalence of Cryptosporidium was 38.4% (89/232), and three species were detected with SSU rRNA gene, including C. parvum (n = 88), C. ryanae (n = 9), and C. bovis (n = 1). Prevalence of C . parvum neonatal calves with diarrhea (52.6%, 51/97) was significantly higher than calves without diarrhea (28.1%, 38/135). All the C . parvum -positive samples were analyzed based on gp60 gene, IIdA15G1 (n = 35), IIdA20G1 (n = 21), IIdA14G1 (n = 17), and IIdA19G1 (n = 13) were successfully subtyped in this study.Conclusions These data indicated that C . parvum was a major contributor in diarrheal disease in neonatal calves, and C . parvum subtypes from neonatal calves in Xinjiang were high genetic diversity. Additionally, our findings implicating neonatal calves could be a potential source of human Cryptosporidium infection and provide further evidence for the uniqueness of C . parvum IId subtypes in cattle in China.