A Clinical Case of Severe Anemia in a Sheep Coinfected with Mycoplasma ovis and Candidatus Mycoplasma haemovis' in Hokkaido, Japan

Abstract

ABSTRACT. A 2-year-old East Friesian sheep imported from Australia exhibited severe anemia after contagious pustular dermatitis in Hokkaido, Japan. Hemoplasma infection was confirmed in blood smears. Both Mycoplasma ovis and 'Candidatus Mycoplasma haemovis' were detected by PCR and sequence analyses. In the epidemiological analysis, dual pathogens were detected in 6 of 12 (50.0%) sheep imported from Australia with the infected ewe at the same time, 1 of 5 (20.0%) sheep introduced from a domestic farm in Hokkaido, and in 1 of 16 (6.3%) sheep from an epidemiologically unrelated ranch. It is the first clinical case of sheep to confirm coinfection of these pathogens in Japan. Haemobartonella and Eperythrozoon cause infectious anemia in several mammalian species [8,17]. These pathogens have recently been reclassified as genus Mycoplasma on the basis of 16S rRNA gene analysis and morphological similarities [8]. Mycoplasma ovis (formerly Eperythrozoon ovis) causes ovine hemoplasmosis, which is characterized by poor weight gain, severe anemia, and even mortality in lambs and, occasionally, young adult sheep [1]. On the other hand, chronic sustained infection can occur asymptomatically in older sheep [4]. M. ovis also causes a more severe disease in goats [7]. Recently 'Candidatus Mycoplasma haemovis', a new ovine hemoplasma, has been detected in Hungary [5]. This is the first case report to describe M. ovis and 'Candidatus M. haemovis' coinfection in a sheep presenting with severe anemia in Japan.A 2-year-old East Friesian ewe imported from Australia in July 2009 showed contagious pustular dermatitis a month after import. Because anorexia continued after recovery, a blood test was carried out. Severe anemia with hematocrit of 14% was recorded. Erythrocytes with coccoid parasites on their surface were detected in a blood smear (Fig. 1), which strongly suggested infectious hemoplasma. An EDTA-anticoagulated blood sample was collected from the infected ewe. For the epidemiological study, blood was randomly collected from 12 sheep imported from Australia with the infected ewe at the same time, and were managed at a same sheep building until an investigation and, 5 sheep introduced from a domestic farm in Hokkaido. Additionally blood samples were also collected from 16 sheep kept in an epidemiologically unrelated ranch. It was geographically apart from the first ranch, and no movement of sheep has been recorded between the two ranches.Total DNA was extracted from 200 μl of blood using a QIAamp DNA Blood Mini Kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany) and stored at -30ºC until use. For screening, PCR amplification was performed in a 25 μl reaction mixture containing 5 μl of each DNA template and an F2/R2 hemoplasma-specific primer set [6]. Longer 16S rRNA * CORRESPONDENCE TO: INOKUMA, H., Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, 080-8555 Obihiro, Japan. e-mail: inokuma@obihiro.ac.jp ©2012 The Japanese Society of Veterinary Science Fig. 1. Giemsa-stained blood smear from the anemic sheep with Mycoplasma ovis and 'Candidat...

Prevalence, Genotype Richness, and Coinfection Patterns of Hemotropic Mycoplasmas in Raccoons (Procyon lotor) on Environmentally Protected and Urbanized Barrier Islands

“…Coinfection with multiple hemoplasmas has been described in humans (16), domestic animals (45,63,64), and wildlife (36). However, it remains unknown why patterns of hemoplasma coinfection vary among raccoons and habitats.…”

Molecular characterization of hemotropic mycoplasmas (Mycoplasma ovis and ‘Candidatus Mycoplasma haemovis’) in sheep and goats in China

“…‘ Candidatus M. haemovis’ was first demonstrated in a sheep flock with fatal hemolytic anemia in Hungary [24], following studies reported the presence of both M. ovis and ‘ Candidatus M. haemovis’ DNAs in sheep in Hungary [24], Japan [8], and the USA [27], in goats in Switzerland [25], and in Capricornis crispus in Japan [18]. However, there was no report documented the existence of M. ovis and ‘ Candidatus M. haemovis’ in sheep and goats in China.…”

“…16S rRNA gene homology between M. ovis and ‘ Candidatus M. haemovis’ in this study was very high, at 97.3–97.5% (data not shown), revealing the close genetic relationship between them, which suggested that ‘ Candidatus M. haemovis’ might not be a new hemoplasma species, but another copy of M. ovis 16S rRNA gene, which was validated by Deshuillers et al’s report that M. ovis strain Michigan has two different copies of the 16S rRNA gene. The detection of multiple different 16S rRNA gene sequences in a veterinarian in Texas [22], in a severe anemia sheep in Japan [8], in goats in Switzerland [25] and in sheep in Hungary [24], might also be explained by the existence of multiple copies of the 16S rRNA gene within a single strain of M. ovis , each having a variable genetic composition, as reported for other bacteria [34]. …”

“…Additionally, among the 11 hemotropic Mycoplasma spp. identified from 489 patients, M. ovis -like organism was the most prevalent [23], a species which was mainly found in small ruminants, such as deer [26, 38, 39], goats [4, 25, 33], sheep [4, 8, 24, 28, 40], and Japanese serows [18]. It is noteworthy that the nucleotide sequences of M. ovis (KU983740 and KU983746) in the present study had highest homology with M. ovis (GU230144 and KF313922) from humans (99.8% and 99.8–99.9%).…”

“…Mycoplasma ovis (formerly Eperythrozoon ovis ), which could elicit major health problems and high mortality in lambs, has been identified in sheep and goats [8, 24–26]. In 2009, a novel hemoplasma, a 17 bp long deletion and an overall the 16S RNA gene sequence identity of only 97% compared to M. ovis , has been detected in Hungary.…”