Abstract

Ali Sharifzadeh*, Abbas Doosti, Mohammad Hashem Fazeli and Iman Adavoudi

Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (MAP) is a gram positive, acid-fast bacterium and cause of Johne’s disease in some animals. The important signs of this disease in bovine are diarrhea, weight loss, bowel inflammation, fever and reduce of milk production. The symptoms of this disease are very similar to Crohn©s disease in humans. The aim of this study was to use nested -PCR as an accurate and fast method to trace MAP in bull semen. Semen samples from 112 bulls were collected and DNA was extracted. Then, nested-PCR was performed by specific primers for IS900 gene of MAP. The PCR products with 230 bp length were estimated as a positive. The frequency of MAP in semen samples were 12.50%. The results were showed nested-PCR is a good procedure with high efficiency for detection of intracellular bacteria such as M. paratuberculosis in bull©s semen samples. Thus, despite this abundance more attention to this disease in bulls to identify MAP quickly is essential.