Mycoplasma haemocanis Infection—A Kennel Disease?

摘要

Mycoplasmahaemocanis(formerlyHaemobartonellacanis)isaredbloodcellparasitethatcausesdiseasemainlyinimmunosuppressedandsplenectomizeddogs.Clinicaloutbreakofthediseaseresultedinfailureofalargeexperimentalproject.WeaimedtoidentifywhetherM.haemocanishasincreasedprevalenceinkennel-raiseddogs.Inaprospectivestudy,wecomparedtheprevalenceofM.haemocanisinwholeblood(anti-coagulatedbyuseofEDTA)collectedfrompetdogs(UniversityofIllinois,UrbanaChampaign,Ill.;n=60)withthatinbloodfromdogsraisedinthreedistinctkennelsinwesternEurope(WE;n=23),easternEurope(EE;n=20),andNorthAmerica(NA;n=20).Screeningincludedantibodytestingandmicroscopyofbloodsmears.ThepresenceofM.haemocaniswasidentifiedusingapolymerasechainreaction(PCR)assayforspecificDNAoftheorganism.Noneofthepetdogs(0%)wastestpositiveforM.haemocanisDNA.Mycoplasmahaemocaniswasfoundindogstestedatallofthekennels.Infectionrateinthethreekennelswas30,35,and87%,respectively(allP0.001versuscontrol,#59175;supxmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.coms/"2/sup-test).LatentinfectionwithM.haemocaniswasnotasingleobservationinkennel-raiseddogs.Prevalencemaybehigherthanthatinapetdogpopulation.Thepotentialexistsfortheselatentinfectionstoadverselyaffectorconfoundresearchresults.