Isolation and identification of Mycoplasma agalactiae by culture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from sheep of Qom province, Iran

Contagious agalactia (C.A) is an infectious syndrome of sheep that is characterized by mastitis andsubsequent failure of milk production, arthritis, abortion and keratoconjunctivitis. Mycoplasma agalactiae(M. agalactiae) is the main cause of the disease in sheep. The aim of this study was isolation andidentification of M. agalactiae with culture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay from sheep of Qomprovince in Iran. A total of 102 samples were collected from milk secretion, eye, ear and joint exudates ofsheep. All samples were cultured in PPLO broth supplemented for M. agalaciae isolation. The bacteriaDNAs were extracted by phenol/chloroform method and the PCR assay was applied for detecting ofMycoplasma genus in 163bp fragment of 16S rRNA gene and M. agalactiae in 375bp fragment oflipoprotein gene from culture as same as in clinical samples. Out of the 102 samples, 19(18.63%) cultureswere shown positive and typical Mycoplasma colonies in PPLO agar culture diagnostic method and59(57.8%) were scored positive by Mycoplasma genus PCR, 19(18.62%) of the samples were scoredpositive by using M. agalactiae PCR as diagnostic method. Out of the 102 samples, 19 samples wereshown both positive in the culture and PCR, 42 samples were shown both negative in the culture and PCR.40 samples were negative in the culture and positive in PCR whereas only one sample was positive inculture and negative in PCR. The results showed that the more isolations of M. agalactiae were taken from milk and less in joint samples. M. agalactiae was one of the main factors of contagious agalactia that was detected for the first time from sheep in Qom province