Molecular detection and seroprevalence of Mycoplasmas in clinicaly healthy working dogs

Abstract

In this study seroprevalence and prevalence of mycoplasmas in clinically healthy dogs were studied. Thirty-four working dogs of various breeds, gender and age were included in this research. Among them, 27 were working dogs from Slovene armed forces and 7 were working sheepdogs. We used dot-immunobinding assay (DIBA) as a serological test for the detection of specific antibodies to Mycoplasma cynos, Mycoplasma canis and Mycoplasma molare and consensus PCR for detection of genes for 16S rRNA or 16S/23S IGS region of mycoplasmas. Specific antibodies against at least one of the canine mycoplasmas were detected in 94.1% dogs. Of them 23.5% samples showed positive reaction only to M. cynos, 20.6% were positive only to M. canis and none of the samples were positive only to M. molare. Altogether 47.0% of samples were positive to M. cynos and M. canis whereas only one dog (2.9%) had specific antibodies to all three mycoplasmas tested. The presence of mycoplasmas detected by PCR was 57.14% in younger dogs (= 1 year) and 18.5% to 35.3% in older dogs, depending on year of the sampling. Genital swabs were PCR-positive in more cases (60%) in comparison with oral swabs (46.7%). M. canis was detected in 40% of positive cases, in the same percent of samples mixed not determined mycoplasma infections were confirmed. Mycoplasma species such as: M. cynos, M. edwardii, M. maculosum, M. spumans were determined each in single cases and in one case mixed ureaplasma infection was confirmed.