Toxoplasma gondii isolates from mouflon sheep (Ovis ammon) from Hawaii, USA.

Little is known of Toxoplasma gondii isolates circulating in wildlife. The mouflon (Ovis ammon) is very popular game animal, hunted for its trophy horns. Here, we report the isolation and genetic characterization of T. gondii from two mouflons from Hawaii, USA. Both sheep had antibodies titers of 1:800 or higher. Viable T. gondii were isolated and nested PCR-RFLP genotyping revealed two genotypes, a clonal Type III (designated TgMouflonUS1), and a new genotype (designated TgMouflonUS2, and ToxoDB PCR-RFLP genotypes #249). This is the first report of T. gondii infection, isolation and genetic characterization in mouflons from the USA.