Vet World Vol.16 April-2023 Article-1
Research Article
Veterinary World, 16(4): 668-674
https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2023.668-674
The prevalence, virulence, and serogroups of Dichelobacter nodosus and prevalence of Fusobacterium necrophorum in footrot lesions of sheep and cattle in Morocco
2. Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Contagious Diseases Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Hassan II, Rabat, Morocco.
Background and Aim: Footrot is a contagious disease of ruminants leading to severe economic losses. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence, virulence, and serogroups of Dichelobacter nodosus and the prevalence of Fusobacterium necrophorum in footrot lesions of sheep and cattle.
Materials and Methods: A total of 106 pathogenic lesion samples were taken from 74 sheep and 32 cattle exhibiting typical footrot lesions and were analyzed for the presence of D. nodosus and F. necrophorum by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Both virulence and serogroup were estimated for D. nodosus positive samples.
Results: Among the 106 samples, 89 were positive by PCR for F. necrophorum, D. nodosus, or both. Dichelobacter nodosus was detected at a rate of 78.3% versus 28.3% for F. necrophorum. Virulent D. nodosus strains were detected in 67.5% of positive samples, with a higher rate in sheep (73.4%) than in cattle (47.4%). Benign D. nodosus strains were detected in 57.8% of samples, with a lower prevalence rate in sheep (50%) than in cattle (84.2%). The positive samples of D. nodosus revealed the presence of three dominant serogroups (D, H, I) and three minor serogroups (G, C, A) by serogroup-specific multiplex PCR.
Conclusion: The findings provided information on the prevalence of D. nodosus and F. necrophorum strains in footrot lesions of sheep and cattle in some regions of Morocco, which will be useful for developing an effective autovaccine for the prevention of this disease in cattle and sheep in these regions. Keywords: cattle, Dichelobacter nodosus, footrot, Fusobacterium necrophorum, polymerase chain reaction, sheep.
Keywords: cattle, Dichelobacter nodosus, footrot, Fusobacterium necrophorum, polymerase chain reaction, sheep.
How to cite this article: Bamouh Z, Elkarhat Z, Zouagui Z, Fihri OF, and Elharrak M (2023) The prevalence, virulence, and serogroups of
Received: 27-12-2022 Accepted: 27-02-2023 Published online: 03-04-2023
Corresponding author: Zahra Bamouh E-mail: z.bamouh@mci-santeanimale.com
DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2023.668-674
Copyright: Bamouh, 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.