Marcatori molecolari di patologie infettive di interesse medico-veterinario

The control of infectious diseases is tightly linked to the capability of Research and diagnostic laboratories to develop and apply specific protocol for rapid diagnosis. Metodologies based on immunoenzymatic reactions (ELISA) and amplification of DNA by Polymerase Chain Reactions (PCR) have been proved to be useful in diagnosis and epidemiology of veterinary infectious diseases for their versatility, specificity sensitivity and rapid analysis. The aim of this research has been focused on the development of rapid diagnostic systems based on immunoenzymatic techniques and molecular biology applied to two different infectious diseases in sheep: abortion caused by SAO and suclinical mastitis caused by Streptococci species. In this study, new diagnostic molecular markers have been identified for both etiological agents. In particular, specific antigenic subunits of S.Abortusovis have been characterised for its detection in sera by ELISA assay. Furthermore, new multiplex PCRs have been set up to achieve direct and rapid identification of different Streptococci species in milk samples, collected from sheep suffering of mastitis. This study also highlighted S. uberis as predominat species and allowed to identify new diagnostic protein markers, specific for this opportunistic pathogen.