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Equine endometrosis is a multifactorial disease considered to be a one of the most important causes of equine infertility, especially in older mares. This article reviews the current knowledge of equine endometrosis: pathogenesis, diagnosis, and optional treatment. Also describes the histomorphological and immunohistochemical characterization of endometrosis as well as potential etiological factors which may influence disease progression. Unfortunately, the etiology and pathogenesis of endometrosis still remains unclear, and consequently no effective treatment has been proposed so far. Therefore future studies are needed for explanation of this disease.

We compared the effectiveness of various methods for the identification of Staphylococcus spp. other than S. aureus isolated from intramammary infections of cows on 3 dairy farms in Lower Silesia, Poland. A total of 131 isolates belonging to 18 Staphylococcus species were identified by sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA and dnaJ genes, as well using a commercial identification system (ID 32 STAPH; bioMérieux) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS; Bruker Daltonics). Sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was found to have low discriminatory value because only 43% of isolates were recognized unequivocally. Much better results were obtained with the dnaJ gene (all isolates were correctly identified at the species level). However, some of these isolates achieved a low similarity level (<97%) and required a confirmatory test (sequencing of the rpoB gene). The performance of ID 32 STAPH was poor. Regardless of the probability level used (80% or 90%), the commercial system obtained identification rates <40%. Using MALDI-TOF MS and the commercial Bruker database, 67% of isolates were identified correctly with scores ≥2.0 (acceptable species-level identification) but this number increased to 97% after the database was expanded. The definitive identification of Staphylococcus spp. other than S. aureus causing intramammary infections in cattle often requires a combination of different procedures, and the existing databases should be updated.