Vet World   Vol.12   May-2019  Article-6

Isolation and molecular characterization of Mycoplasma spp. in sheep and goats in Egypt

Background and Aim: Different species of Mycoplasma are associated with many pathological problems in small ruminants including respiratory manifestation, this problem results in significant losses, especially in African countries. This study aimed to (I) study some epidemiological aspects of Mycoplasma species infections in Egyptian sheep and goats at Giza Governorate, (II) diagnosis of Mycoplasma species affections using bacterial isolation and identification, (III) apply the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for typing of different Mycoplasma species, and (IV) illustrate the phylogenetic tree for the isolated Mycoplasma species and other species from GenBank using the purified PCR product.

Materials and Methods: A total of 335 samples were collected from sheep and goats from Giza Governorate in Egypt as 142 nasal swabs from clinically affected animals, 167 pneumonic lungs, 18 samples from tracheal bifurcation, and 8 samples by bronchial wash were cultured on pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLOs) media for cultivation of Mycoplasma species. PCR and sequencing and phylogenetic analysis were adopted to identify and classify the isolated Mycoplasma species.

Results: A total of 24 Mycoplasma isolates were isolated on PPLO media, identified by biochemical tests, and confirmed and typed by PCR using specific primers. 10 isolates were confirmed as Mycoplasma arginini, four isolates as Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae by PCR, and 10 isolates as undifferentiated Mycoplasma species. A purified isolate of M. arginini and M. ovipneumoniae was sequenced and phylogenetic analysis was illustrated.

Conclusion: M. arginini and M. ovipneumoniae are prevalent in Egyptian sheep and goats. Further studies on M. arginini are required due to its high frequency of isolation from pneumonic sheep and goats and also from animals suffer from different respiratory manifestations. Keywords: goats, Mycoplasma, polymerase chain reaction, sequencing and phylogenetic analysis, sheep.

Keywords: goats, Mycoplasma, polymerase chain reaction, sequencing and phylogenetic analysis, sheep.

How to cite this article: Abdel Halium MM, Salib FA, Marouf SA, Abdel Massieh ES (2019) Isolation and molecular characterization of Mycoplasma spp. in sheep and goats in Egypt, Veterinary World, 12(5): 664-670.

Received: 04-12-2018  Accepted: 15-03-2019     Published online: 13-05-2019

Corresponding author: Emil S. Abdel Massieh   E-mail: emilsaad@cu.edu.eg

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2019.664-670

Copyright: Abdel Halium, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.