THE INFLUENCE OF THE PULSED-FIELD GEL ELECTROPHORESIS MOLECULAR TYPE OF SUBCLINICAL STAPHYLOCOCCUSAUREUS ON DRY PERIOD ELIMINATION IN CANADIAN DAIRY HERDS

摘要

Due in part to the refractoiy and variable nature of S. aureus to intramammary treatment, especially dry cow antibiotic therapy (DCT), much attention has been paid to identifying risk factors associated with its cure. Efforts to describe specific genetic and cellular characteristics of this pathogen have also been an integral component of increasing the overall understanding of the organism and its ability to evade treatment. Biotyping, phage typing, random amplified polymorphic DNA typing (RAPD), pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and binary typing (BT) are techniques that have been used to describe the toxins produced, the ability of viruses to infect the bacteria, and to fingerprint S. aureus. This information has been very useful to increase the understanding of the pamogenicity and epidemiological characteristics of S. aureus, as well as identifying novel strains of S. aureus. PFGE is both a reliable and reproducible methodology which has a high discriminatory power (2).