Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e Molise 'G. Caporale', National and OIE Reference Laboratory for Brucellosis, Via Campo Boario 64100, Teramo, Italy.
Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Puglia e della Basilicata, Diagnostic Unit, Via Manfredonia 20, 71100, Foggia, Italy.
J Med Microbiol. 2014 Feb;63(Pt 2):325-329. doi: 10.1099/jmm.0.065672-0. Epub 2013 Dec 9.
Since 1994, when Brucella ceti was first isolated from an aborted dolphin fetus, several cases have been reported worldwide. The first case of B. ceti in the Mediterranean (and in Italy), however, was recorded only in 2012, off the coast of Tuscany. Extensive studies, using serological and microbiological methods, have documented this bacterium in dolphins and demonstrated its zoonotic potential. We describe the typing of two B. ceti strains isolated from striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) stranded on the southern Apulia coastline. B. ceti isolates were conventionally typed, and then genotyped by both the multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and the multilocus variable number of tandem repeats typing (MLVA) methodologies to infer phylogeny and potential epidemiological links between the two cases. The two isolates were identified through MLST analysis as belonging to the common sequence type 26 (ST26), while MLVA analysis, having established that the two isolates have identical profiles, assigned them to a novel genotype within cluster A - a unique representative of a new Mediterranean subcluster. The results thus revealed a link between the two cases studied, demonstrating the usefulness of MLST and MLVA for the epidemiological investigation of brucellae among marine mammals.
自 1994 年首次从流产的海豚胎儿中分离出鲸布鲁氏菌以来，世界各地已有数例报告。然而，地中海（以及意大利）首例鲸布鲁氏菌病例仅记录于 2012 年，在托斯卡纳海岸外。广泛的研究使用血清学和微生物学方法证明了这种细菌在海豚中的存在，并证明了其人畜共患病的潜力。我们描述了从搁浅在普利亚南部海岸的条纹海豚（Stenella coeruleoalba）中分离出的两种鲸布鲁氏菌菌株的分型。常规对鲸布鲁氏菌分离株进行分型，然后通过多位点序列分型（MLST）和多位点可变数串联重复序列分型（MLVA）方法进行基因分型，以推断两种菌株之间的系统发育和潜在的流行病学联系。通过 MLST 分析，两种分离株被鉴定为常见序列型 26（ST26），而 MLVA 分析确定两种分离株具有相同的图谱，将它们分配到 A 群内的一个新基因型中-一种新的地中海亚群的独特代表。研究结果表明，这两个研究案例之间存在关联，证明了 MLST 和 MLVA 对海洋哺乳动物中布鲁氏菌的流行病学调查的有用性。
