Haemophilus parasuis - virulence genes and serovars

摘要

Glasser's disease, caused by Haemophilus parasuis, is a significant disease of pigs worldwide, causing polyserositis, polyarthritis and meningitis. There arc 15 known serovars of H. parasuis (Olvcra et al. 2006). The correlation between pathogenic andnon-pathogenic isolates based on serovar, originally established by Kielstein and Rapp-Gabrielson (1992) through inoculation of pigs with the serovar reference strains, has been challenged (Olvera et al. 2006). This has prompted research into virulencegenes and other genotyping methods to be able to predict virulence. The hypothesis of the current study was that there is a correlation between six potential virulence genes and the known virulence of the 15 serovar reference strains.