Electron microscopic study of canine Babesia gibsoni infection

Veterinary Diagnostic and Investigational Laboratory, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Tifton, GA 31793, USA.

Canine babesiosis is a tick-borne parasitic disease caused by the intraerythrocytic parasites, Babesia canis and Babesia gibsoni. A lethargic, weak, American Staffordshire Terrier (pit bull) dog, which had regenerative, normocytic, normochromic anemia, was shown by polymerase chain reaction analysis to be infected with B. gibsoni. Transmission electron microscopy of ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid-treated blood disclosed many well-preserved, intraerythrocytic babesia trophozoites. Four morphologic forms of babesia trophozoites are described (small spheres, small rods, irregular forms lacking pseudoinclusions, and large spheres having pseudoinclusions) and are compared with intraerythrocytic forms of B. canis and B. gibsoni described in other light and electron microscopic studies of in vivo and in vitro Babesia infections. This is the first detailed transmission electron microscopic study of canine B. gibsoni-infected red blood cells in North America.