Streptococcus suis is a gram positive bacterium that causes septicemia, bronchopneumonia, arthritis, and fatal meningitis in young piglets. Piglets are usually infected through exposure to asymptomatic sows. Ihirty-five different serotypes of S. suishave been identified,1 however, recent work has suggested that only 29 unique serotypes exist.2'3 In addition, many isolates remain non-typeable using traditional methods. Of the 35 serotypes described, serotype 2 is most commonly associated with disease, but serotypes 1, 1/2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 16 are also commonly isolated from diseased swine.' Newport Laboratories has developed a comprehensive, unambiguous method of capsular typing based on whole genome sequencing and bioinformatics. This method of typing is useful to type field and there arc no non-typeable serotypes.
展开▼
