Molecular identification of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis in sheep

Caseous lymphadenitis is still a serious zoonotic problem in Turkey. Sheep suffer from the disease with yield loss in wool and meat production. Moreover, with inexperienced laboratory staff, biochemical identification may go unrevealed. The scope of this study was to demonstrate the presence of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis in sheep by PCR. The sampling was conducted via collecting lymph fluids from the lymph node internal pouch wall of 100 sheep that were examined for the presence of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis . Molecular identification of the Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis isolates was carried out by establishing the presence of the proline iminopeptidase gene. All isolates were confirmed to be Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis by polymerase chain reaction. The polymerase chain reaction procedure conducted in this research was observed to be reliable and fast, and could be utilized for confirmation of caseous lymphadenitis in sheep as an optional technique to time-consuming biochemical identification methods.