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Comparison of Microscopy and PCR for Detection of Three Species of Encephalitozoon in Feces

As the name implies Microsporidia are very small. Spores rarely exceed 3 lm in size, making them difficult to see, difficult to differentiate from other tiny particulate matter in clinical and environmental specimens, and difficult or impossible to differentiate some species of Microsporidia even with excellent microscopic equipment. Therefore, several investigators have developed methods to detect spores in biological specimens or water using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) [1–3,5,7,8]. Because the small size of spores and non-specific staining characteristics make direct detection of spores in feces by light microscopy difficult and because little is known of the sensitivity, or limits of detection, for either microscopic or molecular methods the present study was undertaken. In this study microscopic versus molecular methods of detection were compared when known numbers of spores from three microsporidian species were seeded into animal feces. Additional attempts were made to determine if detection varied with feces from different animal sources.