diversity – Swine in Minnesota

Nasal microbial diversity is associated with survival in piglets infected by a highly virulent PRRSV‑1 strain

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 Science Page is from researchers Pau Obregon‑Gutierrez, Martí Cortey, Gerard E. Martin‑Valls, Hepzibar Clilverd, Florencia Correa‑Fiz, Virginia Aragón and Enric Mateu from Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CReSA) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in Spain.

PRRSV2 Viral Diversity within a Farrow-to-Wean Farm Cohort Study

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.

In this week’s science page researchers Mariana Kikuti, Carles Vilalta, Juan Sanhueza, Nakarin Pamornchainavakul, Jessica Kevill, My Yang, Igor A. D. Paploski, Tatiana Lenskaia, Nkechi M. Odogwu, Ross Kiehne, Kimberly VanderWaal, Declan Schroeder and Cesar A. Corzo share results of further analysis a 2020 study using whole genome sequencing to assess PRRSv diversity within and across litters.

Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae genetic variability within swine production flows

In this recent publication in the Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research, Dr. Alyssa Betlach from the MycoLab at the University of Minnesota investigates the genetic variability of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae within and across various production flows within a single system.

Key points

Multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis allows to detect genetic variability between M. hyopneumoniae strains.
Four production flows were sampled over a duration ranging from 4 months to 3 years.
Between 1 and 6 variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) types were found within the four production flows.
VNTR types in growing sites seem to originate from their respective breeding herds.

Understanding PRRSv diversity at the pig and litter level

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, Dr. Mariana Kikuti from the MSHMP team is sharing results from a study using whole genome sequencing to assess PRRSv diversity within and across litters.

Key points

Viral diversity within the piglet population is generally small, but higher diversity was found in ORFs 4 and 5a.
Within animal consensus changes were observed in a period as short as 2 weeks, which means piglets might be going to the GF sites with different viruses than the ones identified closer to farrowing.

Can Streptococcus suis genotype predict its pathogenicity?

PhD candidate April Estrada, working with Drs. Gebhart and Marthaler published an open-access article on Streptococcus suis in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. Streptococcus suis is an older pathogen but its prevalence as well as its virulence have been rising lately. This study investigates if categorizing isolates into serotypes and genotypes could help predict the severity of the disease on the farm.