Abstract
Fecal specimens (271 samples) from wild deer, Cervus nippon centralis, were collected from nine different areas in Japan; these samples were subjected to a real-time reverse transcription PCR for Cryptosporidium-and Giardia-specific 18S ribosomal RNA to investigate the prevalence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia infection. The incidence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in the nine areas ranged from 0% to 20.0% and 0% to 3.4%, respectively. The prevalence of Cryptosporidium among male and female deer was 8.1% and 3.9%, respectively, while that of Giardia was 0.7% and 0.8%. Sequence analysis identified the Cryptosporidium deer genotype, Cryptosporidium bovis, Cryptosporidium ryanae and Cryptosporidium meleagridis from the sequence of Cryptosporidium-specific partial 18S ribosomal RNA and Giardia intestinalis assemblage A from the partial sequence of Giardia-specific 18S rRNA. The variation in regional prevalence indicates that Cryptosporidium infection depends on environmental factors, and that bovine Cryptosporidium was detected more frequently than cervine Cryptosporidium. These data suggest that wild deer might be a healthy carrier of bovine Cryptosporidium.