Abstract
Two male juvenile central bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps) were submitted for postmortem examination after dying at their respective homes. Dragon 1 had marked hemopericardium with restrictive epicarditis. The inner aspect of the distended pericardial sac was lined by a fibrinoheterophilic membrane. In addition, granulomas abutted the testes. Dragon 2 had acute hemopericardium and granulomatous arteritis of the great vessels exiting the heart. Histologically, both animals had granulomatous arteritis of the large arteries with intrahistiocytic gram-positive, slightly elongated, up to 2 μm long microorganisms that contained a vacuole. These microorganisms were also present in the paratesticular granulomas. On transmission electron microscopy, the microorganisms were identified as microsporidians given the presence of exospore, endospore, vacuole, nucleus, and a filament with 4–6 coils. The microsporidia were identified as Encephalitozoon pogonae based on sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer 1 of the ribosomal RNA genes. Microsporidia are agents of disease in bearded dragons. Intrapericardial arteritis of large arteries with hemopericardium or restrictive epicarditis is a fatal manifestation of this infection.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 467-470 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation |
Volume | 31 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 1 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019 The Author(s).
Keywords
- Encephalitozoon pogonae
- arteritis
- bearded dragons
- hemopericardium
- microsporidian