Cyclospora cayetanensis is a protozoan parasite that causes foodborne outbreaks of diarrheal illness (cyclosporiasis) worldwide. Contact with soil may be an important mode of transmission for C. cayetanensis and could play a role in the contamination of foods. However, there is a scarcity of detection methods and studies for C. cayetanensis in soil. Traditional parasitology concentration methods can be useful for the detection of C. cayetanensis, as found for other protozoa parasites of similar size. The present study evaluated a concentration method using flotation in saturated sucrose solution, subsequent DNA template preparation and qPCR following the Bacteriological Analytical Manual (BAM) Chapter 19b method. The proposed flotation method was compared to three commercial DNA isolation kits (Fast DNATM 50 mL SPIN kit for soil (MP Biomedicals, Irvine, CA, USA), Quick-DNATM Fecal/Soil Microbe Midiprep kit (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA, USA) and DNeasy® PowerMax® Soil Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany)) for the isolation and detection of DNA from experimentally seeded C. cayetanensis soil samples (5−10 g with 100 oocysts). Control unseeded samples were all negative in all methods. Significantly lower cycle threshold values (CT) were observed in the 100 oocyst C. cayetanensis samples processed via the flotation method than those processed with each of the commercial DNA isolation kits evaluated (p < 0.05), indicating higher recovery of the target DNA with flotation. All samples seeded with 100 oocysts (n = 5) were positive to the presence of the parasite by the flotation method, and no inhibition was observed in any of the processed samples. Linearity of detection of the flotation method was observed in samples seeded with different levels of oocysts, and the method was able to detect as few as 10 oocysts in 10 g of soil samples (limit of detection 1 oocyst/g). This comparative study showed that the concentration of oocysts in soil samples by flotation in high-density sucrose solutions is an easy, low-cost, and sensitive method that could be implemented for the detection of C. cayetanensis in environmental soil samples. The flotation method would be useful to identify environmental sources of C. cayetanensis contamination, persistence of the parasite in the soil and the role of soil in the transmission of C. cayetanensis.
Keywords: Cyclospora cayetanensis; commercial DNA isolation kits; comparison methods; concentration flotation; detection; soil.