Ovine footrot: new approaches to an old disease

Footrot is a bacterial disease that has substantial economic and welfare impacts in sheep and can be difficult to manage. Research is focussed on reducing the impact that footrot has on farmers and their flocks and better understanding the aetiology of the disease. Key areas of current research include, developing better vaccines, deploying tailored vaccines in a specific and targeted fashion on individual farms, analysing and developing better farm management practices to suit specific sheep farming environments, elucidating the virulence genes and bacterial population dynamics that drive footrot and using genetic testing in combination with selective breeding to produce stock that are more resilient to disease.     

Severity and persistence of footrot in Merino sheep experimentally infected with a protease thermostable strain of Dichelobacter nodosus at five sites

Objective To test the hypothesis that ovine footrot associated with a thermostable protease strain of Dichelobacter nodosus undergoes self cure or is sustained as an annually recurring disease, depending on the environment.
Design and procedure Forty Merino sheep from a single blood line were infected with a protease thermostable strain of D nodosus a t each of five sites in Western Australia. Footrot lesions and microscopic evidence of D nodosus were recorded every fortnight for 2.5 years, supplemented by laboratory culture. Rainfall, soil and air temperature, pasture quantity and composition and soil types were also recorded. Flocks that apparently self cured were relocated to a more favourable site for footrot in the final spring season.
Results The maximum prevalence of feet with clinical footrot lesions was 80.6, 1.3, 14.4, 3.8 and 88.1% at the five sites. Severe footrot occurred for three consecutive spring seasons at one site that had clay loam soil and at least 3500 kg/ha total pasture dry matter annually. However, the infection was asymptomatic for up to 10 weeks between outbreaks. D nodosus was isolated from flocks for 2.5 years at only two sites, although there was microscopic evidence of the organism at other sites in the final year. A thermolabile variant (strain U6) of D nodosus was isolated from the two sites where footrot persisted.
Conclusion Depending on time and location, ovine footrot induced by a protease thermostable strain of D nodosus either self cured or persisted as annual outbreaks interspersed with periods of asymptomatic infection.     

A longitudinal study of the risks for introduction of severe footrot into sheep flocks in the south west of Norway

In 2008, ovine footrot was detected in Norway for the first time since 1948. By December 2012 it had spread to 99 flocks, all in the county of Rogaland in the south west of Norway, and 42% of which were located in the municipality of Rennesøy in Rogaland. The aim of this study was to investigate risk factors for contracting severe footrot in flocks of sheep. A flock was considered positive for severe footrot based on positive virulence test or by clinical signs in addition to a positive PCR test.     

节瘤拟杆菌PCR检测方法的建立

根据节瘤拟杆菌特有保守序列设计引物，利用聚合酶链式反应（PCR）建立了一种鉴别检测该茵的方法。对可能影响PCR检测结果的一系列因素进行了较详细的研究，选择了适宜PCR检测的快捷处理病样获得反应模板的方法，对PCR反应条件进行了优化，使对已知菌株培养物检测灵敏性最高可到30个菌／30μL反应体系；用广泛的相关菌株和茵群验证引物的特异性，证明设计的引物特异性强。将PCR方法用于临床病样的初步检测，部分病样PCR检测阳性。为用PCR方法检测节瘤拟杆菌引发的牛、羊、鹿腐蹄病奠定了基础。     

The virulence of Dichelobacter nodosus,measured by the elastase test,is an important predictor for virulent footrot diagnosis in New South Wales sheep flocks

Ovine footrot is a contagious bacterial disease that causes foot lesions, and depending on the virulence of the causative strains, may lead to severe underrunning of the hoof and lameness. Virulent footrot can be identified, treated and controlled more effectively than less virulent benign forms. The in vitro elastase test for virulence of the causative bacteria, Dichelobacter nodosus, has been used to support clinical diagnosis. However, not all laboratory-designated virulent D. nodosus strains cause clinical signs of virulent footrot. This study evaluated retrospectively how well the elastase test supported clinical footrot diagnosis in 150 sheep flocks examined for suspect footrot in New South Wales between August 2020 and December 2021. Flocks were included if measures of clinical disease, environmental conditions and the virulence of D. nodosus isolates were available. Variation in the elastase activity result between D. nodosus isolated from the same flock made bacterial virulence hard to interpret, but calculating the mean elastase rate for all isolates from the same flock made correlations between bacterial virulence and flock footrot diagnosis possible. Simplifying bacterial virulence into whether there were any elastase-positive D. nodosus isolates before 12 days increased the predictive value of elastase results for virulent diagnosis, compared with using the first day that any isolate was elastase positive or the percentage of elastase-positive isolates by 12 days, but not all clinically virulent flocks had isolates with elastase activity before 12 days. Logistic regression models were fitted to identify the minimum number of predictors for virulent footrot diagnosis, with models suggesting that virulent footrot diagnosis was best predicted by adding the elastase test result and environmental conditions to the prevalence of severe foot lesions (score 4 and 5). However, performing the same analysis with different breeds, ages of sheep and seasons might highlight other factors important in the diagnosis of virulent footrot.     

奶牛腐蹄病坏死杆菌分离鉴定及白细胞毒素基因lktA1序列分析

为分离纯化奶牛腐蹄病坏死杆菌,分析其与其他菌株的亲缘关系,本研究利用坏死杆菌白细胞毒素特异性引物,对奶牛腐蹄病病牛蹄部拭子样品进行了PCR检测,利用厌氧培养基对PCR检测阳性样品进行了坏死杆菌的分离培养,以分离的坏死杆菌基因组DNA为模板,对白细胞毒素基因进行了克隆和序列分析。结果显示,9份奶牛腐蹄病病牛蹄部拭子样品PCR检测结果均为阳性,对其中一份样品中的坏死杆菌进行分离培养,获得了纯培养物,命名为bFR13-1。坏死杆菌bFR13-1菌株白细胞毒素基因测序结果显示,与GenBank已发表的H05、A25和B35菌株的白细胞毒素基因在核苷酸水平的同源性分别为98.40%、98.35%和90.79%,推导氨基酸的同源性分别为97.7%、97.6%和89.0%。进化树分析结果显示,坏死杆菌bFR13-1菌株白细胞毒素与H05菌株的同源性最高,bFR13-1菌株与H05菌株和A25菌株呈较近亲缘关系。结果表明,不同坏死杆菌分离株的白细胞毒素呈现一定的变异性,这种变化是否与坏死杆菌致病性相关,值得深入研究。