Detection of treponemes in canker lesions of horses by 16S rRNA clonal sequencing analysis.

This research investigates the presence of a bacterium called Treponema in the diseased hoof tissue of horses, using a gene sequencing method, and finds multiples types of Treponema in the lesions but none in healthy hoof tissues.

Research Background

• The research focuses on equine canker, a chronically infected state of the foot in horses.
• Spirochetes, a type of bacteria, are seen in these infections, but the exact cause of the disease is not certainly known.

Methodology

• The researchers carried out gene sequencing on randomly picked clones.
• This was done using PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), a method of duplicating DNA, with Treponema-specific primers.
• The study used canker lesions from two horses and healthy portions of skin (frog and sole) from one horse.

Findings

• A total of 114 clones were recorded from the infected tissue samples, indicating the presence of Treponema.
• No clones were observed in the healthy hoof tissues, suggesting that the bacteria are exclusive to the infected regions.
• The clones from the canker lesions were categorized into 19 operational taxonomic units.
• Some of them were treponemal phylotypes that originated from papillomatous digital dermatitis lesions in dairy cattle, while others were identified to be similar to uncultured human oral treponemes.
• These results lead to the conclusion that numerous types of treponemes are present in the canker lesions.

Research Implications

• Understanding the types of bacteria associated with equine canker could potentially assist in developing treatments for this disease in horses.
• The detection method used in this study might be broadly applicable to research focusing on bacterial involvement in various diseases.