Occurrence of virulence-associated genes in Pasteurella multocida isolates obtained from different hosts

Abstract

Pasteurella multocida infects a wide range of animals and the infection may spread to human through animal bites and scratches. Pasteurella multocida isolates, obtained from several clinically healthy and diseased animals (bovine, sheep, goat, poultry, dog and cat), were investigated for capsule biosynthesis (capA, B, D, E and F) and expression of 22 virulence-associated genes using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Multiplex PCR results revealed expression of capA, capD and capB genes in 81 (61.83%), 30 (22.90%) and 10 isolates (7.29%), respectively. However, neither of the isolates harbored capE or capF genes and ten isolates (7.29%) were negative for all cap genes. The expression of the capB gene was observed in small ruminant isolates. The occurrence of the ompA, ompH, oma87, sodA and sodC genes was noticed in all of the samples. More than 90% of the isolates harbored hgbA (96.18%), ptfA (95.41%), exbBD-tonB (93.12%), nanB (93.12%) and plbB genes (90.83%). The transferrin binding protein encoding gene tbpA was exclusively detected in the ruminant isolates. The limited number of isolates (25.95%) harbored dermonecrotoxin gene (toxA) and the highest occurrence was noted in the small ruminants, and the capsular type D isolates. This study highlights that the toxA, tbpA, and pfhA genes can be considered as important epidemiological markers for the characterization of P. multocida isolates.

Keywords: Capsular type; PCR; Pasteurella multocida; Virulence factors.