Abstract
Brucellosis is a reemerging infectious zoonotic disease of worldwide importance. In human, it is mainly caused by Brucella melitensis, a natural pathogen for goats. In India, a large number of goats are reared in semi-intensive to intensive system within the close vicinity of human being. At present, there is no vaccination and control strategy for caprine brucellosis in the country. Thus, to formulate an effective control strategy, the status of etiological agent is essential. To cope up with these, the present study was conducted to isolate and identify the prevalent Brucella species in caprine brucellosis in India. The 30 samples (fetal membrane, fetal stomach content and vaginal swabs) collected throughout India from the aborted fetus of goats revealed the isolation of 05 isolates all belonging to Brucella melitensis biovars 3. All the isolates produced amplification products of 1412 and 720 bp in polymerase chain reaction with genus and species specific 16S rRNA and omp31 gene based primers, respectively. Moreover, the amplification of omp31 gene in all the isolates confirmed the presence of immuno dominant outer membrane protein (31 kDa omp) in all the field isolates of B. melitensis in aborted foetus of goats in India. These findings can support the development of omp31 based specific serodiagnostic test as well as vaccine for the control of caprine brucellosis in India.
Highlights
Brucellosis is an infectious zoonotic disease of worldwide importance in both animals and humans [1, 2] caused by microorganisms belonging to the genus Brucella, Gramnegative facultative intracellular bacteria [3,4,5]
All the aborted materials collected from the cases of abortions were inoculated on Brucella selective agar plates and the isolates producing characteristic, very small, glistening and smooth, round, and pin-point colonies were further transferred on MacConkey Lactose agar (MLA) and Sheep blood agar
The isolates which did not grow on MacConkey agar (MLA) and are to be nonhemolytic on blood agar were examined for morphological characters by Gram and Modified Ziehl-Neelsen (MZN) staining
Summary
Brucellosis is an infectious zoonotic disease of worldwide importance in both animals and humans [1, 2] caused by microorganisms belonging to the genus Brucella, Gramnegative facultative intracellular bacteria [3,4,5]. Six species of Brucella have been identified: B. melitensis, B. suis, B. abortus, B. ovis, B. neotomae, and B. canis [8]. This classification is based on the animal host specificity, susceptibility to dyes, metabolic patterns, phage typing, and serological testing [9,10,11,12]. New species were discovered: in marine mammals (B. pinnipedialis and B. cetacea), in the common vole Microtus tusarvalis (B. microti), and even in a breast implant (B. inopinata) [2]
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