European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

USING MULTIPLEX PCR FOR DETECTION OF SOME MICROBIAL PATHOGEN CAUSING PNEUMONIA IN CAMEL

Amani A. Hafez*

ABSTRACT

Pneumonia is one of the most important causes of morbidity and mortality, which cause severe economic losses in camels (Camelus dromedarius). This study was formed to compare the fast-responsive PCR with conventional culture method in pneumonia and evaluate the reliability of multiplex PCR assay (mPCR) for simultaneously detecting and identifying 6 pathogenic bacteria. So, 160 nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from 160 camels from Matrouh and Alexandria Governorates, Egypt, suffering from pneumonia. The result revealed that (36.8%) and (51.2%) isolates were obtained by culture and PCR respectively. The isolates constituted 6 genera of pathogenic bacteria, were as follows, Klebsiella spp., (12.5%) and (16.2%), E. coli, (10.6%) and (13.1%), Staphylococcus spp., (9.4%) and (12.5%), Salmonella spp., (2.5%) and (4.3%) and Pasteurella multocida (1.9%) and (3.1%) by culture and PCR respectively to the total number of isolates. Meanwhile, Mycoplasma spp., (1.9%) were detected only by PCR. Multiplex PCR assay found to be rapid, economic and sensitive tool for accurate detection of the 6 pathogenic organisms concurrently. In addition, mPCR detected virulence genes of these pathogens enhancing evaluation of the pathogenicity of pathogenic bacteria present in infected camels and is a useful and rapid technique to apply to field samples.

Keywords: Camelus dromedaries, pneumonia, Culture, mPCR.