微生物学技术

Q fever is caused by Coxiella burnetii, an organism widely found in nature and responsible for infections in arthropods, pets, domestic and wild animals, as well as humans (1,2). Conventional diagnosis of Q fever is mainly based on serological tests, such as immunofluorescence, enzyme-linked ...

It is only in recent years that Listeria monocytogenes has become regarded as a significant food-borne pathogen. Interest in the organism arose due to several food-borne outbreaks in the early 1980s of listeriosis. The high mortality rate associated with the illness prompted widespread p ...

When the Japanese microbiologist Shiga discovered a bacterium causing dysentery in humans in 1898, the organism was designated Shigella dysenteriae type 1. The toxin produced by the germ was found to have enterotoxic and neurotoxic properties. Later on, it became clear that, in most countr ...

Leptospirosis, which is caused by pathogenic spirochetes of the genus Leptospira, is an important zooanthroponosis, both from a clinical and economic standpoint. The wide variety of potential disease reservoirs, coupled with the ability of Leptospira to survive for long periods in so ...

There are a large variety of bacteria that are pathogenic for animals, including many opportunistic pathogens normally residing in the environment. Among these diverse veterinary pathogens, mycobacteria are highly significant, particularly for farmed animal species, as many a ...

More than 20 different species of mollicutes, most of them belonging to the genus Mycoplasma, have been identified from ruminant hosts to date. While a considerable part of this group is conceived to be of minor epidemiological relevance, it contains some important pathogenic agents that have ...

More than 20 mycoplasma species have been isolated and characterized from avian sources (1). Only four avian mycoplasmas species are known to cause economic losses in commercial poultry production. Mycoplasma gallisepticum (Mg) infection commonly causes chronic respiratory di ...

Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae is the etiological agent of enzootic pneumonia, a worldwide disease that causes economic losses in swine production (1). Generally, transmission of M. hyopneumoniae occurs by direct contact or aerosol in chronically infected herds when young susceptib ...

Most members of the bacterial family Pasteurellaceae are usually regarded as opportunistic secondary invaders, which under normal conditions might inhabit the mucosal membranes of the upper respiratory and lower genital tracts of mammals and birds (1). Out of the almost 100 species or s ...

Salmonella is still recognized as a major zoonotic pathogen for animals and humans (1). In many countries, it is the leading cause of all food-borne outbreaks and infections (2,3). Conventional cultural methods for the detection of Salmonella spp. in clinical human or animal material, food, fee ...

Toxoplasma gondii is an important intracellular protozoan that is the causative agent of toxoplasmosis in humans and animals. Toxoplasmosis is a zoonosis and is normally caught by eating undercooked infected meat or by ingestion of oocysts excreted by its definitive host, the cat. It is res ...

Trichinella worms (family: Trichinellidae; phylum: Nematoda) are parasites that mainly infect mammals, including humans, although they have been found in birds and, recently, in African crocodiles (1,2). The main reservoir is represented by carnivores with cannibalistic and scav ...

The Gram-negative Yersinia genus belongs to the family of Enterobacteriaceae, in which 3 of the 11 Yersinia species are recognized as human pathogens, namely Y. pestis (the etiological factor of plague), Y. pesudotuberculosis, and Y. enterocolitica (the causative agents for yersinios ...

Brucellosis is a bacterial disease affecting livestock worldwide. Historically, at least seven species of pathogenic Brucella have been described, based primarily on host preference. Genetically, it appears that there is only a single species with host-adapted strains (1). Brucel ...

Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae is the etiological agent of porcine pleuropneumonia, which causes significant losses in industrialized swine production worldwide. Bacterial diagnosis of contagious porcine pleuropneumonia is generally done by bacteriological i ...

Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular prokaryotes with a hexalaminar cell wall that, in contrast to other gram-negative bacteria, contains no peptidoglycan. As a major antigenic constitutent, their outer membrane contains a 10-kDa lipopolysaccharide (LPS) with a trisacchar ...

Clostridia are anaerobic spore-forming bacteria that are widespread in the environment. They produce many extracellular hydrolytic enzymes and are especially involved in the decomposition of carcasses and plants in natural conditions. Some species produce potent toxins and a ...

The transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) diseases are a group of rare, fatal, and transmissible neurodegenerative diseases that include kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, scrapie in sheep, transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME; 82), and chronic was ...

During the 20th century, food animal agriculture grew from small operations, where livestock (cattle, sheep, and swine) and poultry (chickens and turkeys) had access to free range, to large operations where animals and poultry were concentrated and confined to feed lots or buildings. The qua ...

The mucosal surface of the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract is about 200–300 m2 and is colonized by 1013–14 bacteria of 400 different species and subspecies. Savage (1) has defined and categorized the gastrointestinal microflora into two types, autochthonous flora (indigenous flora) ...