Isolation and Detection of Mycoplasma agalactiae from Semen Samples of Goats

Abstract

Contagious agalactia (CA) is a highly infectious disease of goats and sheep, and is a form of Mycoplasmosis,<br />which is usually enzootic. Since Mycoplasma agalactiae (M. agalactiae) is the main cause of this disease in<br />goats, the aim of this study was to isolate and detect M. agalactiae from semen of goat bucks. Thirty-nine semen<br />samples were collected from goat bulks, and all samples were cultured in PPLO broth medium supplemented for<br />M. agalaciae isolation. The bacteria DNAs were extracted from clinical samples and the PCR assay was applied<br />to detect Mycoplasma genus and M. agalactiae species using specific primers, which amplified a 163bp<br />fragment in 16SrRNA gene and a 375bp fragment in lipoprotein gene. The PCR evaluations were performed for<br />both the clinical samples and the cultures. Out of the 39 samples, 29 (74.3%) of the cultures were shown positive<br />and typical Mycoplasma colonies grew on PPLO agar, which could be considered as the diagnostic method. In<br />addition, 38 (97.4%) samples had positive PCR results for Mycoplasma genus and six (15.3%) of the samples<br />were shown to be positive using PCR for M. agalactiae as the diagnostic method. In the present study, M.<br />agalactiae was detected in semen of goat bulks for the first time in Iran. Therefore, it is recommended to<br />concern semen as one of the significant sources for this pathogen and the possibility for transmission to the<br />female goats through semen is highlighted. Moreover, presence of this microorganism in semen could be<br />involved in infertility of goat population.