A phylogenetic analysis of Mycoplasma strains circulating in sheep pneumonia in the Kars region of Turkey

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate Mycoplasma species by cultural and molecular methods in 250 pneumonics and 30 healthy appearance sheep lungs brought from slaughterhouse and butcheries in the Kars region of Turkey. The phylogenetic positioning of the bacterial strains to be obtained in the present study was another remarkable outcome of the study. Mycoplasma isolation was achieved solely in 26 (10.4%) of 250 sheep lungs with pneumonia. Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae was found predominant species in 12 (46.15%) of samples and that was followed by Mycoplasma arginini in 4 (15.38%) of strains. Moreover, two samples were found to be co-infected with the aforementioned Mycoplasma species and 8 were found negative. The partial sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA gene of 22 (84.61%) isolates emerged that 11 of the isolates were M. ovipneumoniae and 4 were M. arginini. Two mixed samples were further identified as M. arginini by the sequence analysis. Five isolates that were not identified by cultural and PCR procedures were identified as M. bovigenitalium by sequence analysis. The evolutionary analysis of the 16S rRNA sequence yielded three main clusters as M. ovipneumoniae, M. arginini, and M. bovigenitalium which took part in the Hominis group that was previously described in Mycoplasma phylum. The inter se proximity of the main clusters was thus described polyphyletic for M. ovipneumoniae and M. arginini and monophyletic for M. bovigenitalium. However, in the general view, M. arginini and M. bovigenitalium isolates had two distinct phylogenetic positions, but their proximity to each other was higher than those obtained for M. ovipneumoniae isolates.