Using this system, the most common serotypes causing fowl cholera in the United States are A:1, A:3, and A:3.4 [8]. While there are no indications that any particular serotype GDC-0941 purchase is more or less virulent than others the virulence of avian isolates of most common serotypes appears to vary considerably [9]. Fowl cholera disease can occur in peracute/acute and subacute/chronic forms [10]. All types of poultry are susceptible to the disease, although among

them turkeys, pheasants and partridges are highly susceptible to peracute/acute forms of disease whereas chickens are relatively more resistant [11]. In chickens, the most common forms of the disease are acute and chronic. In peracute/acute disease there is sudden death due to terminal – stage bacteremia and endotoxic shock [1, 3]. Signs of acute cholera have been reproduced by injection of endotoxin click here from P. multocida[12–14]. Post-mortem findings are dominated by general septicemic lesions. [1, 2]. In chronic disease, signs are principally due to localized infections of leg or wing joints, comb, wattles and subcutaneous

tissue of the head [2, 10]. The completed genome of P. multocida strain Pm70 has been available for over eleven years [15] and has greatly facilitated subsequent genomic-based approaches towards better understanding the underlying genetic mechanisms related to virulence and fitness. This complete genome sequence has been used in the study of specific enzymes Thymidylate synthase [16], microarray analyses of differentially expressed genes [17–20], proteomic analyses [21, 22], study of virulence factors [16, 23–25], reverse vaccinology approaches [26], and as a reference for assembly and comparison to other genomes. While the Pm70 genome sequence has been a great asset in our studies, progress has been modest in the identification and understanding of P. multocida virulence [27]. Even today, very Ralimetinib order little

is known about the totality of the mechanisms behind P. multocida’s ability to cause disease. The Pm70 strain was isolated from the oviduct of a layer chicken in 1976 from Texas (personal communication- RE. Briggs). This strain belongs to serotype F:3 [28] and not A:3 as reported earlier [15], is avirulent and does not cause experimental fowl cholera disease in chickens [28]. In contrast, other strains of P. multocida have been isolated, such as strains X73 and the P1059, that are highly virulent to chickens, turkeys, and other poultry species [29, 30]. Additional P. multocida strains of bovine, avian, and porcine origin have recently been sequenced, which was the subject of a recent comparative review [31]. The authors noted, based on the nine genomes sequenced to date, there was “no clear correlation between phylogenetic relatedness and host predilection or disease”.