Multilocus Sequence Typing of Pasteurella multocida Isolates from Acute Fowl Cholera Outbreak in Layer

Fowl cholera is an infectious disease caused by Pasteurella multocida that contributes to high economic loss in the commercial chicken industry. Three Pasteurella multocida strains were isolated from outbreaks of acute fowl cholera in the Korean layer farms from 2018 to 2019. One strain was identified and serotyped using capsular PCR typing. This strain was also genotyped by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) PCR typing as A: L3, whereas other strains were non-typable. The multilocus sequence typing (MLST) result showed that the A: L3 strain is sequence type (ST) 134; the non-typable strains were recorded as the following new STs: ST 366 and ST 374. Using phylogenetic tree analysis based on MLST sequences, we determined that ST 366 and ST 374 are closely related to the reference strains that were previously isolated from duck and chicken in Korea, and they were highly prevalent within the Korean cluster. In conclusion, Pasteurella multocida strains were identified and isolated in this study. Furthermore, this is the first report of using MLST to determine the prevalence of fowl cholera in Korea.