Letter: The isolation of mycoplasma from horses

An outbreak of respiratory disease in horses associated with Mycoplasma felis infection

Lower respiratory tract disease developed in a group of racehorses in training between two and six years of age. Disease was observed in 22 of 25 horses for which full records were available. Seroconversion to Mycoplasma felis was demonstrated by indirect haemagglutination assay in 19 of 22 paired sera and high titres (> or = 64) were found in convalescent sera from the three remaining horses. Evidence of respiratory viral infection was confined to seroconversions to equine herpesvirus-4 in two of the horses. Tracheal wash samples, taken from four horses with visibly increased tracheal mucopus, contained more than 10(4) colony forming units/ml M felis and high proportions of neutrophils. This is the first description of an outbreak of lower respiratory tract disease in horses in training associated with M felis infection.

Isolation of acholeplasmas from horse feces

Acholeplasmas were detected in five of 96 feces samples from clinically normal horses. Three of the five strains isolated were identified as A. equifetale, one as A. hippikon, and one was serologically identical with the Acholeplasma strain 881.

Serological investigation of horse sera for antibodies against mycoplasmas and acholeplasmas

Sera from horses with respiratory disease (RD) have been investigated using the complement fixation test, indirect hemagglutination test, enzyme immune assay, and the metabolic inhibition test, and sera from mares after abortion, using the complement fixation test, indirect hemagglutination test and enzyme immune assay, for antibodies against Mycoplasma equirhinis, M subdolum, M. equigenitalium, M. pulmonis, M. felis, Acholeplasma laidlawii, A. hippikon and A. equifetale. Antibodies were found against all mycoplasma and acholeplasma species tested, more often against acholeplasmas. The antibody pattern was quite similar for horses with RD and for mares after abortion. The results of the four serological tests performed showed only a limited correlation and the percentage of sera with antibodies detected by the four tests used differed widely.

Mycoplasmas isolated from the respiratory tract of horses

Ten mycoplasmas were isolated from 130 nasopharyngeal swabs from thoroughbred horses with acute respiratory disease and three from 198 apparently normal horses. Two mycoplasmas were isolated from 21 tracheal swabs taken at necropsy. These mycoplasmas, together with six isolated from the equine respiratory tract by other workers, were subjected to biochemical and serological tests. Other properties examined in certain representative strains were appearance under the electron microscope, ability to adsorb or agglutinate the erythrocytes of various animal species and the electrophoretic pattern of the cell proteins. On the basis of these test, mycoplasmas from the equine respiratory tract were divided into seven species. Three species belonged to the genus Acholeplasma, members of which do not require sterol for growth, and were identified as A. laidlawii, A. oculi (formerly A. oculusi) originally isolated from the eyes of goats, and a recently named species A. equifoetale, previously isolated from aborted equine fetuses. Of the four sterol-dependent Mycoplasma species, one was indentified as M. pulmonis, a common rodent pathogen. Another cross-reacted serologically with M. felis and should probably be classified as that species. The other two species probably represent new species peculiar to the horse. One of these, represented by the strains N3 and N11, ferments glucose and is serologically distinct from 19 recognized species of glucose-utilizing mycoplasmas and from two species which do not metabolize either glucose or arginine. The other species, represented by four strains, hydrolyses arginine and, because it is serologically distinct from all the named arginine-hydrolysing Mycoplasma species, the name M. equirhinis sp.nov. is proposed for it. Of the seven species, only M. pulmonis and the glucose-utilizing species represented by N3 and N11 were found exclusively in horses with acute respiratory disease. A. oculi was isolated from an apparently normal horse. The other four species were found in normal horses as well as those with respiratory disease, although three out of the four strains of M. equirhinis were from sick horses.