title: Technical note: Identification of Prototheca species from bovine milk samples by PCR-single strand conformation polymorphism.
abstract: We report the development of a PCR-single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) method to identify Prototheca spp. responsible for bovine mastitis: P. zopfii and P. blaschkeae. The method was set up using reference strains belonging to P. zopfii genotype 1, P. zopfii genotype 2, and P. blaschkeae as target species and P. stagnora, and P. ulmea as negative controls. The assay was applied on 50 isolates of Prototheca spp. isolated from bovine mastitic milk or bulk-tank milk samples, and all isolates were identified as P. zopfii genotype 2. We conclude that the described PCR-SSCP approach is accurate, inexpensive, and highly suitable for the identification of P. zopfii genotype 2 on field isolates but also directly on milk, if preceded by a specific DNA extraction method.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Biologia e Biotecnologia Agraria, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Lodi, Italy. cremonesi@ibba.cnr.it
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cremonesi
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pozzi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ricchi
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Castiglioni
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Luini
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chessa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002417:Cattle; D005260:Female; D008414:Mastitis, Bovine / Q000382:microbiology; D008892:Milk / Q000382:microbiology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods / Q000662:veterinary; D018807:Polymorphism, Single-Stranded Conformational / Q000235:genetics; D011525:Prototheca / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment