Differentiation of Mycoplasma gallisepticum Strains through RFLP

Abstract

Avian mycoplasmosis is a disease that considerably affects the poultry sector, which is reflected in the decrease of the production parameters in fertile and commercial egg laying broilers. Presentation costs are so high that it is impossible for the poultry industry to survive without thinking of its effective control or eradication. There is great interest in the type of M. gallisepticum (Mg) strains, both vaccine and field, which are key aspects to handle the disease, but there is still no definitive method for Mg strain characterization. Genes related to surface proteins —gapA and mgc2,lipoprotein (lp)— that make it possible to identify and characterize the Mg genomically are currently being studied. In this study, regions of the lp gene were amplified from strains F and Ts-11 of Mg through the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, which gave an amplicon of 455 bp for each of the strains; each of the amplicons was applied the restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) test with the Taq I enzyme, which made it possible to differentiate vaccine strains from field strains obtained from tracheal swab samples taken at commercial farms. It was demonstrated that PCRRFLP is an appropriate method of diagnosis of mycoplasmosis in our environment.