Phylogeny of Mycoplasma agalactiae vaccine strains in Iran, a molecular study based on multilocus sequence typing

Mycoplasma agalctiae (Ma) is a principle agent in etiology of agalaxy. Iran remains a major world stronghold for agalaxy with numerous annual outbreaks. Three indigenous Ma strains of Lorestan, Taliqan and Shiraz are used in preparation of agalaxy vaccine at Razi institute. In order to characterize genetic properties of these strains a MLST genotyping system consisting of five genes (dnaA, gltX, gyrB, metS, tufA) based on guidelines recently developed was employed. In consequence, at dnaA, gltX, gyrB, metS and tufA loci of all the three strains alleles 1, 21, 2, 2 and 1 were identified, respectively. The gltX allele (21) was shown to be new with no previous record in the MLST database. A new sequence type (ST33) with close similarity to ST4 was assigned to these stains. Given the characteristics of the Iranian animal farming sector, we assume circulation of more clonal complex or complexes of Ma in the Iranian environment is expectable.