Diagnostics – Swine in Minnesota

PCR detection of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae in piglet processing fluids in the event of a clinical respiratory disease outbreak

Dr. Vilalta and collaborators from the University of Minnesota provide new insights for the potential use that processing fluid (PF) may have to detect M. hyopneumoniae in breeding farms by bringing us a clinical case published in VetRecord Case Reports.

Highlights

Genetic material of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae from PF was quantified by real-time PCR.
The origin of M. hyopneumoniae genetic material detected in PF needs to be clarified.
Processing fluids are a potential sample to detect M. hyopneumoniae in breeding herds.

Use of sequencing technologies to improve swine infectious disease management

This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.

This week, Shaoyuan Tan, PhD-candidate from the Murtaugh’s lab is sharing the technology behind MinION.

Key points

MinION sequencing can be used for antibiotic resistance prediction to guide prudent and effective antibiotic use
MinION sequencing can improve clinical diagnosis to strain-level detection
MinION sequencing is a potential solution for rapid emerging infectious disease investigations

What are the best diagnostic tools for tracking Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae in swine?

M. hyopneumoniae causes one of the swine industry’s most devastating diseases—a chronic, infectious pneumonia that can cause respiratory distress and lung lesions in pigs. It can also severely slow pig growth. In order for producers and veterinarians to best measure the success of their disease control and elimination efforts, they need to be able to detect the pathogen in live pigs. However, many diagnostic tools can be unreliable. Dr. Maria Pieters’ lab at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine recently led a study to decipher the reliability of two tools, laryngeal swabs and deep tracheal catheters, in detecting the pathogen.

PCR clamping for selectively sequencing wild-type PRRSV in vaccinated herds

This week, we are sharing a report by Harmon et al. from Iowa State University regarding PCR clamping. This project was funded by AAVLD Thermo Fisher Innovation Grant in Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine and ISU-VDL.

Key points

Conventional ORF5 sequencing may not differentiate between wild-type or vaccine-like.
Blocking the amplification of vaccine-like sequences it is possible to increase the likelihood of wild-type amplification.
Clamping allows the amplification of the wild-type with mixtures containing as little as 10% of a mixture with the vaccine-like.

A quick guide to Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae diagnostics

Sample types for early detection of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae is a popular post on this blog. Dr. Pieters, head of the MycoLAb at the University of Minnesota created an online quick guide to help swine practitioners decide which sample type they should collect if they are looking for Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae.

This guide is available at http://z.umn.edu/MycoplasmaDiagnostics