MLST scheme for the porcine pathogen Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae

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Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (APL) is a bacterium that causes a world-wide economically important severe life threatening lung disease of pigs. Bacteria can be passed from pig to pig through the air or by direct contact. Not all APL bacteria are the same and methods to identify different types (typing schemes) have been developed. The most widely used one, called serotyping, recognises 10 different types of APL and is largely based on the different sugar coatings that APL may have. Knowing the serotype can help in making vaccines against APL but only gives us limited information as to the individual forms of APL that are around both locally and nationally. We are going to develop a typing scheme called MLST that uses the DNA sequence from specific genes of APL. MLST has the advantages that it can be used to track individual APL forms from all over the world. We intend to (1) apply MLST to UK and European isolates of APL (2) determine the serotype of APL isolated from pigs, to allow comparison of old and new schemes, and (3) determine which antibiotics, used to treat infected animals, are the best to use in the UK and Europe.