Detection on Mycobacterium avium subspecies in the gut associated lymphoid tissue of slaughtered rabbits

11 páginas, 3 tablas, 3 figurasRabbits are susceptible to infection by different species of the genus Mycobacterium. Particularly, development of specific lesions and isolation of Mycobacterium avium subsp. avium and Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis, both subspecies of the M. avium complex, has been reported in wildlife conditions. Although, rabbit meat production worldwide is 200 million tons per year, microbiological data on this source of meat is lacking and more specifically reports of mycobacterial presence in industrially reared rabbit for human consumption have not been published. To this end, we sought mycobacteria by microbiological and histopathological methods paying special attention to Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in rabbits from commercial rabbitries from the North East of Spain.This study was supported by grants (AGL2012-39818-CO2-02) and (INIA, RTA2010-00022) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the Spanish National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology, respectively. Rakel Arrazuria held a pre doctoral fellowship (BFI-2012-237) from the Basque Government. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer Reviewe