Mysterious absence of sheep type strains in MAP Iranian isolates

Introduction and Objectives: In Iran, paratuberculosis has been long existed in cattle farms and sheep and goat herds. Only little is known on epidemiology of the Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) population in this country. Materials and Methods: in order to better understand of epidemiology, 142 suspicious feces, milk, intestine and lymph node samples from bovine, ovine and caprine hosts from Ahwaz, Alborz, Fars, Isfahan, Golestan, Kerman, North Khorasan, Tehran and Qazvin provinces were collected and cultured on mycobactin-J supplemented Herrold s egg slopes. Then positive culture were confirmed using PCR-IS900 and were analyzed using PCR-Multiplex DMC. Results: In this study, out of 142 suspicious samples 47 samples were positive culture and were confirmed using PCR-IS900. The result showed that all of the MAP isolated from bovine, ovine and caprine were cattle type strains. This data can mentioned that cattle type among MAP Iranian isolates can infect other host species. However absence of sheep type in Iranian environment is vague because the sheep breeding industry has been existed for long time. This specific type is highly similar to Europe such as Britain. In other hand, animal importation (imported cattle from England to the farm of Abadan Oil Company) is as an assumption which is strongly supported.Conclusion: Of course, further research is needed to better understand this theory.

کلیدواژه ها:

paratuberculosis ، epidemiology ، PCR-Multiplex DMC ، cattle type strains.