Mycoplasma anserisalpingitidis sp. nov., isolated from European domestic geese (Anser anser domesticus) with reproductive pathology

Abstract

In 1983, <i>Mycoplasma</i> sp. strain 1220 was isolated in Hungary from the phallus lymph of a gander with phallus inflammation. Between 1983 and 2017, <i>Mycoplasma</i> sp. 1220 was also identified and isolated from the respiratory tract, liver, ovary, testis, peritoneum and cloaca of diseased geese in several countries. Seventeen studied strains produced acid from glucose and fructose but did not hydrolyse arginine or urea, and all grew under aerobic, microaerophilic and anaerobic conditions at 35 to 37 ˚C in either SP4 or pleuropneumonia-like organism medium supplemented with glucose and serum. Colonies on agar showed a typical fried-egg appearance and transmission electron microscopy revealed a typical mycoplasma cellular morphology. Molecular characterization included analysis of the following genetic loci: 16S rRNA, 23S rRNA, 16S-23S rRNA ITS, <i>rpoB</i>, <i>rpoC</i>, <i>rpoD</i>, <i>uvrA</i>, <i>parC</i>, <i>topA</i>, <i>dnaE</i>, <i>fusA</i> and <i>pyk</i>. The genome was sequenced for type strain 1220^T. The 16S rRNA gene sequences of studied strains of <i>Mycoplasma</i> sp. 1220 shared 99.02-99.19 % nucleotide similarity with <i>M. anatis</i> strains but demonstrated ≤95.00-96.70 % nucleotide similarity to the 16S rRNA genes of other species of the genus <i>Mycoplasma</i>. Phylogenetic, average nucleotide and amino acid identity analyses revealed that the novel species was most closely related to <i>Mycoplasma anatis</i>. Based on the genetic data, we propose a novel species of the genus <i>Mycoplasma</i>, for which the name <i>Mycoplasma anserisalpingitidis</i> sp. nov. is proposed with the type strain 1220^T (=ATCC BAA-2147^T=NCTC 13513^T=DSM 23982^T). The G+C content is 26.70 mol%, genome size is 959110 bp.