Molecular epidemiology of Streptococcus zooepidemicus infection in naturally occurring equine respiratory disease.

The objective of the study was to characterise the molecular epidemiology of Streptococcus zooepidemicus infection among isolates collected sequentially from recently weaned, pasture maintained Welsh mountain ponies with naturally occurring respiratory disease. Weekly nasopharyngeal and tracheal lavage samplings over a 10-week period were conducted in 29 ponies. Two PCR typing methods based on characterisation of the M-protein hypervariable (HV) region and the 16S-23S rRNA gene intergenic spacer were then applied to isolates of S. zooepidemicus recovered from nasopharyngeal swab and tracheal wash samples. S. zooepidemicus infection was highly prevalent during the study, being isolated from 94% of tracheal washes and 88% of nasopharyngeal swabs. Among 39 different S. zooepidemicus types isolated, more were isolated from the trachea (n=33) than the nasopharynx (n=27). There was evidence from temporal patterns of infection for clonal succession over time by the more prevalent S. zooepidemicus types. Novel S. zooepidemicus types were identified, including previously untyped HV regions and intra-strain multiples of both the HV region and intergenic spacer types.