The birds in this study were emaciated and alimentary contents were not found in the digestive tract. Also, two birds showed acute urate nephropathy, indicating dehydration. When trichomonads colonize the upper digestive tract, they incite progressive inflammation and necrosis. Trichomonads attach to the surface check details epithelium and use amoeboid motion and hydrolytic enzymes to separate epithelial cell junctions to enable invasion and progressive movement deeper into the submucosa. Once lesions become marked, swallowing is seriously

impeded, leading to regurgitation and accumulation of food in the oral cavity and crop ( Neimanis et al., 2010). Death occurs as a result of starvation, respiratory failure (if the lesion blocks the trachea) or hepatic dysfunction if organisms invade the liver ( Forrester and Foster, 2008), which was observed in the green-winged saltators in this report. There is a close correlation between the lesion intensity and pathogenicity,

larger lesions resulting from highly pathogenic isolates ( Honigberg, 1979). Infection with mild pathogenic isolates results in mild inflammation in the oral mucosa and pharynx. However, infection with more virulent isolates results in marked caseous necrosis in the upper digestive Selleck ALK inhibitor tract. Some highly virulent isolates invade sinuses, skull and internal organs such as liver, lungs, air sacs, pericardium and pancreas ( Forrester and Foster, 2008). In this study, an immature mafosfamide owl showed invasion in the sinus, mandibular muscles and salivary glands suggesting that it was infected with a highly virulent isolate. Studies to determine hemolytic activity (DeCarli and Tasca, 2002 and Gerhold et al., 2009) with different avirulent and virulent strains of T. gallinae demonstrated varying results. Gerhold et al. (2009) suggested that hemolytic activity does not correspond with clinical virulence. Narcisi et al. (1991) report that hemoglobin levels did not change significantly

during the course of T. gallinae infection in pigeons. These results correspond with our pathologic data. Gross and histological lesions consistent with intravascular and/or intracellular hemolytic anemia ( Valli and Gentry, 2007) were not observed. Positive PCR resultant sequences indicated Trichomonas or other parabasild infections in all birds except to the toucan. Considering that histopathology analysis was strongly compatible with trichomonad organisms, it is possible that the duration of the tissues in formalin lead to negative PCR results due to the DNA crosslinking associated with formalin fixation ( Lin et al., 2009). Similar difficulty with formalin fixed tissues was found in certain Histomonas meleagridis samples ( Lollis et al., 2011). It appears that multiple genotypes of trichomonad species were found in these birds from Brazil.