Rhodococcus equi is an important pathogen of foals that causes severe pneumonia. To date, there is no licensed vaccine effective against R. equi pneumonia of foals. The objectives of our study were to develop an electron beam (eBeam) inactivated vaccine against R. equi and evaluate its immunogenicity. A dose of eBeam irradiation that inactivated replication of R. equi while maintaining outer ce...

The concentration of airborne virulent R. equi is closely correlated with the prevalence of R. equi disease on endemically affected farms. Virulent R. equi is certainly aerosolised in association with dust, but foals are also an important source of airborne virulent R. equi as they breathe off high concentrations in exhaled air. Both clinically ill and asymptomatic foals have high concentration...

BACKGROUND Real-time, quantitative PCR (qPCR) methods for detecting Rhodococcus equi in feces have been developed as a noninvasive, rapid diagnostic test for R. equi pneumonia, but have not been evaluated in a large population of foals. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to evaluate the clinical utility of fecal PCR as a diagnostic test for R. equi pneumonia in foals using receiver ope...

The partial DNA sequences of the 18S rRNA gene of Babesia canis and the 16S rRNA gene of Ehrlichia canis detected in dogs from Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, were compared to sequences from other strains deposited in GenBank. The E. canis strain circulating in Ribeirão Preto is identical to other strains previously detected in the region, whereas the subspecies Babesia canis vogeli is the main Babesia...

EndoSe from Streptococcus equi subsp. equi is an enzyme hydrolyzing glycosyl groups on IgG, analogous to EndoS from Streptococcus pyogenes. We here show that the activity of EndoSe leads to an antiphagocytic function and may thus be a contributory factor to immune evasion of S. equi. Despite the damaging effect that EndoSe has on IgG, antibodies against EndoSe can neutralize its function. Antib...

Existen hemoparásitos (protozoarios y bacterianos) intracelulares que parasitan diversas células sanguíneas. También, en forma extracelular, como el protozoario Trypanosoma evansi, cual ocasiona enfermedades animales humanos. En zonas tropicales, Costa Rica, la transmisión de se favorece por abundancia artrópodos hematófagos actúan vectores biológicos (por ejemplo, las garrapatas son los protoz...

The M-protein genes of Streptococcus equi isolated from 17 outwardly healthy horses after 4 strangles outbreaks had ended, including a quarantined animal, were compared with those of S. equi isolates from 167 active cases of strangles across 4 countries. The healthy horses included 16 persistent S. equi carriers, at least one from each of the four outbreaks. These carriers, despite being outwar...

We present two cases of Rhodococcus equi bacteremia as a cause of sepsis in premature infants who had increasing respiratory distress with multiple episodes of apnea. When we investigated these infants for apnea etiology, blood cultures were taken, and R. equi was confirmed based on the colony characteristics on nutrient agar; extended antibiotherapy was started. R. equi has been identified fre...

BACKGROUND Streptococcus equi subsp equi (S. equi) is the cause of "equine strangles" which is a highly infectious upper respiratory disease. Detection of S. equi is influenced by site of specimen collection, method of sampling, and type of diagnostic test that is performed. We hypothesized i) that a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay that targets the S. equi-specific eqbE gene...