Serological and molecular evaluation of toxoplasmosis in patient undergoing chemotherapy for malignancies in southeast of Iran

Abstract Toxoplasma gondii is zoonotic protozoa that spread throughout the world. The aim of current study was determination of the prevalence of T. gondii infection in patient undergoing chemotherapy for malignancies using ELISA and two different molecular tests including Nested-PCR and LAMP techniques. This study was carried out in Ali Ibn Aboutaleb hospital in Zahedan cities, southeast of Iran. Totally, 154 serum samples from patient were test for detection of IgG and IgM antibodies against T. gondii by ELISA test. All of the sample were also test by Loop amplification (LAMP) and Nested-PCR with RE gene. Totally, 39.4% of the sample sera from cases were positive for IgG against T. gondii. After using RE-Nested-PCR technique, 29.8% sample sera were positively. After using LAMP technique, 33.1% of the samples were found to be positive. Based on our result, the RE-LAMP technique was more effective than RE-nested-PCR method in the detection of T. gondii DNA.