Vol. 11, Special Issue 12 (2022)

Cryptococcus neoformans is an opportunistic yeast that causes life-threatening infections such as meningoencephalitis in human, animals and birds. The source of this organism is mainly pigeon excreta; however, other avian species’ excreta are implicated as a source of this yeast. In the present study, a total of 607 avian droppings collected from four different zoos of Gujarat state and screened to know the prevalence of C. neoformans. Out of 607 avian droppings 33 C. neoformans isolates were recovered from zoo avian droppings. Zoo wise prevalence of C. neoformans from avian droppings was found to be 7.25 per cent (14/193) in Vadodara Zoo, 5.34 per cent (14/262) in Ahmedabad Zoo, 3.61 per cent (3/83) in Junagadh Zoo and 2.90 per cent (2/69) in Surat Zoo. Bird order wise prevalence of C. neoformans recorded was 12.70 per cent in order Pscittaciformes (24/189), followed by 8.20 per cent in Columbiformes (5/61), 8.00 per cent in Galliformes (2/25) and 3.85 per cent in Anseriformes (1/26). All the isolates showed cultural characters on different media viz. SDA with chloramphenicol, Sunflower seed agar and Bird seed agar were indicative of Cryptococcus spp. and were further examined and identified microscopically and biochemically, and biotyped using CGB agar. The nested PCR and CN4/CN5 PCR revealed that all 33 isolates were either C. neoformansor C. gattii. Molecular typing was done using URA5-RFLP which revealed RFLP pattern similar to WM 148 (serotype A, VNI/AFLP1). This confirmed that all 33 isolates were of C. Neoformans var grubii serotype A (VNI) and PCR based mating type detection revealed MATα strains in all the isolates.