Molecular Techniques for Typing Brucella in Livestock

Betsy J. Bricker

 

United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Animal Disease Center, 2300 Dayton Rd, Ames, IA, 50010, USA

 

Throughout history, infectious diseases have had a serious impact on human and animal health and welfare.  These diseases can take a considerable toll on individual and national economies as well.  For many diseases, national programs to control the incidence and spread of infection have been implemented.  To be successful, these programs require efficient means for identifying the disease agent and finding its source.  With recent developments and improvements in molecular techniques, these tasks have become easier.  The polymerase chain reaction is currently used to identify numerous disease agents.  The technique is rapid, sensitive, economical and often highly specific.  Other technologies have been developed, based on PCR, for the identification and typing of viruses, bacteria and other pathogens.  Evaluating and validating these new diagnostic assays is a difficult undertaking.  This paper will describe our experience with developing and evaluating the HOOF-Print assay, a new technique to subtype strains of the pathogenic bacteria that cause brucellosis.