Mycoplasma synoviae, a major pathogen of poultry, contains a single expressed, full-length vlhA gene encoding its haemagglutinin, and a large number of vlhA pseudogenes that can be recruited by multiple site-specific recombination events to generate chimaeric variants of the expressed gene. The position and distribution of the vlhA pseudogene regions, and their relationship with the expressed g...

Mycoplasma gallisepticum is the primary etiologic agent of chronic respiratory disease in poultry, a disease largely affecting the respiratory tract and causing significant economic losses worldwide. Immunodominant proteins encoded by members of the variable lipoprotein and hemagglutinin (vlhA) gene family are thought to be important for mechanisms of M. gallisepticum-host interaction, pathogen...

Mycoplasma synoviae depends on its adhesin VlhA to mediate cytadherence to sialylated host cell receptors. Allelic variants of VlhA arise through recombination between an assemblage of promoterless vlhA pseudogenes and a single transcription promoter site, creating lineages of M. synoviae that each express a different vlhA allele. The predicted full-length VlhA sequences adjacent to the promote...

A reservoir of pseudogene alleles encoding the primary adhesin VlhA occurs in the avian pathogen Mycoplasma synoviae. Recombination between this reservoir and its single expression site was predicted to result in lineages of M. synoviae that each express a different vlhA allele as a consequence of host immune responses to those antigens. Such interstrain diversity at the vlhA expression site, i...

Mycoplasma synoviae (MS) is a pathogen responsible for respiratory and locomotor disorders and causes major economic losses in poultry industry. Early and accurate diagnosis of MS infection plays a major role in control of the infection. This study was conducted to characterize Iranian field isolates of MS isolated from broiler chickens of West Azarbaijan province (Northwest of Iran), and diffe...

Mycoplasma synoviae has two major membrane antigens, MSPA and MSPB, both of which are phase variable and which may be coordinately involved in adhesion of the organism to erythrocytes. A single gene (vlhA) from M. synoviae was characterized, and polypeptides were expressed from nonoverlapping 5' and 3' regions in Escherichia coli. The expression product of the vlhA 5' region reacted with specif...

mycoplasma synoviae expressed variable lipoprotein haemagglutinin (vlha) is believed to play a major role in pathogenesis of the disease by mediating adherence and immune evasion. the aim of this study was sequencing iranian m. synoviae isolates for the detection of nucleotide variation in the m. synoviae vlha gene. using oligonucleotide primers complementary to the single-copy conserved 5´ end...

Mycoplasma synoviae (MS) is a poultry pathogen that has had an increasing incidence and economic impact over the past few years. Strain identification is necessary for outbreak investigation, infection source identification, and facilitating prevention and control as well as eradication efforts. Currently, a segment of the variable lipoprotein hemagglutinin A (vlhA) gene (420 bp) is the only ta...

The goal of this project is to identify the genes encoding M. gallisepticum F-strain surface proteins recognized by specific antibody reagents to characterize the individual role of each gene product in host colonization. Here we report the characterization of a 70-kDa surface protein recognized by monoclonal antibody 6F10. The surface protein was gel isolated and digested with trypsin for eval...

Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) and Mycoplasma synoviae (MS) are the most pathogenic and economically important mycoplasma pathogens that infect chickens. The development of rapid and innovative molecular diagnostic techniques is of pivotal importance for their effective control. The aim of the present study was to develop a novel duplex TaqMan real-time PCR assay for the simultaneous detection o...