Avian mycoplasmosis

Avian mycoplasmosis may be caused by various species of Mycoplasma as Mycoplasma gallisepticum, M. synoviae, M. and M. meleagridis Iowa (1.2), among them M. gallisepticum is the most important in poultry, causing respiratory diseases and a decrease in production, but also can infect game birds. M. gallisepticum has a worldwide distribution, vertically transmitted between birds through infected eggs and horizontally by contact (2). Infected birds are carriers of M. gallisepticum throughout life and may not have symptoms until they suffer some stress.
Clinical signs in poultry range from asymptomatic infection to severe depending on the infecting strain and other predisposing factors. More serious infections are seen when the birds were simultaneously infected with the virus of Newcastle disease, the infectious bronchitis virus, Escherichia coli or other pathogens. The presence of Mycoplasma can be confirmed by isolating the organism in an environment without directly detecting cells or their DNA in infected tissues or swab samples. Bioingentech can detect the virus of Newcastle disease using the following techniques, supported by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) (2):

Technique	Reference
Conventional Polymerase chain reaction	Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for Terrestrial Animals of OIE (1,2,3)
Real-time polymerase chain reaction	Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for Terrestrial Animals of OIE (2,4,5)

Bibliography

Laigret F, Deaville J, Bové JM, Bradbury JM. Specific detection of Mycoplasma iowae using polymerase chain reaction. Mol Cell Probes. 1996 Feb;10(1):23-9.
OIE, Código Sanitario para los Animales Terrestres 2010, vols. I & II, 19a ed., 2010.
Ongor H, Kalin R, Karahan M, Cetinkaya B, Akan M. Detection of mycoplasma species in turkeys by culture and polymerase chain reaction. Rev Sci Tech. 2009 Dec;28(3):1103-9.
Raviv Z, Kleven SH. The development of diagnostic real-time TaqMan PCRs for the four pathogenic avian mycoplasmas. Avian Dis. 2009 Mar;53(1):103-7.
Sprygin AV, Andreychuk DB, Kolotilov AN, Volkov MS, Runina IA, Mudrak NS, Borisov AV, Irza VN, Drygin VV, Perevozchikova NA. Development of a duplex real-time TaqMan PCR assay with an internal control for the detection of Mycoplasma gallisepticum and Mycoplasma synoviae in clinical samples from commercial and backyard poultry. Avian Pathol. 2010 Apr;39(2):99-109.