Evaluation of a real-time PCR in combination with a cultivation method for the detection of  in organs of infected cattle in southern Italy

Viviana Manzulli; Valeria Rondinone; Luigina Serrecchia; Antonio Petrella; Domenico Scaltrito; Leonardo Marino; Lorenzo Pace; Maria Luigia Prencipe; Dora Cipolletta; Mauro Nitti; Antonio Fasanella; Elena Poppa; Domenico Galante

Open Access

Evaluation of a real-time PCR in combination with a cultivation method for the detection of Brucella abortus in organs of infected cattle in southern Italy

Journal of Veterinary Research

Volume 66 (2022): Issue 4 (December 2022)

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Page range: 559 - 563

Received: May 18, 2022

Accepted: Oct 26, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jvetres-2022-0062

Keywords
diagnosis, real-time PCR

© 2022 V. Manzulli et al. published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Introduction

Brucellosis is a widespread zoonosis of great economic importance for livestock farming in many areas of the world. It is a highly infectious disease which is diagnosed using conventional serological and microbiological methods. The aim of this study was to assess the efficiency of a specific real-time PCR in combination with broth cultivation in detecting Brucella spp. in organs of infected cattle, in order to compare the sensitivity of the two approaches and the time needed in them until a correct diagnosis is made.

Material and Methods

We examined 67 organs collected from 10 cattle slaughtered following a brucellosis outbreak which occurred in February 2016 in southern Italy. The research was carried out by enrichment broth cultivations in combination with a real-time PCR every week for six weeks.

Results

Brucella strains were isolated by cultivation from 44 enrichment broths of organs. All isolates were later identified as Brucella abortus by real-time PCR. Using this method in combination with cultivation made it possible to identify the same percentage of infected animals faster than by cultivation alone. Moreover, the same diagnostic results were obtained, on average two weeks before they would have been using only cultivation. In almost all cases, Brucella was detected by real-time PCR after the first week of cultivation in pre-enrichment Brucella broth, while the bacterial growth was evident usually after 2 or 3 weeks.

Conclusion

Real-time PCR has allowed results to be obtained faster than in the classical microbiological method, reducing the response times to identify positive animals by half.

eISSN:: 2450-8608
Language:: English

Publication timeframe:: 4 times per year
Journal Subjects:: Life Sciences, Molecular Biology, Microbiology and Virology, other, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine

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