Diet has been implicated as a major factor impacting clinical disease expression of swine dysentery and Brachyspira hyodysenteriae colonization. However, the impact of diet on novel pathogenic strongly beta-hemolytic Brachyspira spp. including "B. hampsonii" has yet to be investigated. In recent years, distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a source of insoluble dietary fiber, has been i...

BACKGROUND A multiplex qPCR targeting a 128 bp region on the 23S rDNA gene was developed for detection of Brachyspira (B.) hyodysenteriae and B. pilosicoli, the agents of swine dysentery (SD) and porcine intestinal spirochaetosis (PIS), together with a triplet of apathogenic Brachyspira spp. (B. innocens, B. intermedia, B. murdochii) in porcine feces. The multiplex qPCR was evaluated against a ...

Objective: A serological screening study was carried out to determine the prevalence of Lawsonia (L.) intracellularis infections in German pig herds. Additionally a cross-sectional study of eight farrow-to-finish herds which was designed to investigate the dynamics of seroconversion. In addition, bacteriological tests were carried out on faec-al and intestinal samples from herds with diarrhoea ...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether defined dietary manipulations would enhance colonization of mice experimentally challenged with the intestinal spirochaete Brachyspira pilosicoli. Weanling C3H/HeJ mice (n = 48) were fed either a standard balanced mouse diet or a diet supplemented with 50 p.p.m. zinc bacitracin (ZnB), with 50 % (w/w) lactose or with both supplements. Eight mice...

VSH-1 is an unusual prophage-like gene transfer agent (GTA) that has been described in the intestinal spirochaete Brachyspira hyodysenteriae. The GTA does not self-propagate, but it assembles into a virus-like particle and transfers random 7.5 kb fragments of host DNA to other B. hyodysenteriae cells. To date the GTA VSH-1 has only been analysed in B. hyodysenteriae strain B204, in which 11 lat...

The isolation of intestinal spirochetes from the blood of a series of six French patients with a range of serious clinical problems was reported recently (3). These organisms and another from the blood of a patient with AIDS in the United States were subsequently identified as Brachyspira (Serpulina) pilosicoli (7). Intestinal carriage of B. pilosicoli occurs in Australia and is particularly co...