Improving Mycoplasma Hyopneumoniae Diagnostics

October 12, 2022 — 

Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, the etiologic agent of porcine enzootic pneumonia, continues to be one of the main bacterial respiratory pathogens in modern porcine production. Strategies to diagnose, control and eliminate infections are being widely implemented in the field and thus, a constant scrutiny and refinement of the practices put in place is recommended.

Different diagnostic approaches have been described for M. hyopneumoniae, and they can be applied depending on the information required at a given moment. Most commonly, veterinarians may seek to determine the presence or absence of the pathogen in a clinical sample, the degree of infection of an exposed pig or the duration of bacterial shedding, especially at the late stages of the disease. For all these scenarios, and because of the intrinsic difficulty of M. hyopneumoniae to be cultivated in the laboratory, the main practical tool that can be relied on for detection is PCR, which targets and amplifies DNA present in a sample, and can give a relative approximation of bacterial load.

Read the full story at National Hog Farmer.

[Source: National Hog Farmer 11 October 2022]