Veterinary Archives, Vol. 80 No. 6, 2010.
Original scientific paper
Clinical and pathological findings of an outbreak of Tyzzer’s disease in a rabbit colony in Croatia
Branka Artuković
; Department of General Pathology and Pathological Morphology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Željko Grabarević
; Department of General Pathology and Pathological Morphology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Andrea Gudan Kurilj
; Department of General Pathology and Pathological Morphology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Ana Beck
; Department of General Pathology and Pathological Morphology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Kinji Shirota
; Research Institute of Biosciences, Azabu University, Kanagawa, Japan
Yosuke Sakurada
; Research Institute of Biosciences, Azabu University, Kanagawa, Japan
Shoji Kawamura
; Laboratory of Biomedical Science, Department of Veterinary Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Japan
Petar Džaja
; Department of Forensic Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Clinical and pathological findings found during an outbreak of Tyzzer’s disease in a rabbit colony in Croatia are described in this paper. The disease occurred in young rabbits, approximately 50 days old. Over a period of six months, 148 weaned rabbits from a total group of 1753 weaned animals died with symptoms of severe gastrointestinal disease. The main clinical signs observed were diarrhea, abdominal distension, anorexia, weight loss and apathy. Five weaned rabbits were examined at the Department of Pathology of Veterinary
Faculty. In all necropsied animals severe entero-hepatic lesions were seen characterized by disseminated hepatic focal necroses and transmural necrotic typhlitis. Only one animal had necrotic myocarditis. For histopathology the tissue blocks were sectioned in 5μm thick sections and stained using HE, PAS, GMS and the Giemsa method. Immunohistochemistry using anti-Clostridium piliforme RT and MSK strains reacted positively within the hepatocytes and intestine. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay (liver and caecum) amplified the 196-bp DNA fragment specifi c to 16S ribosomal RNA of C. piliforme. This is the first confirmed and described case of Tyzzer’s disease in rabbits in Croatia.
Keywords
Tyzzer’s disease; Clostridium piliforme; rabbits; polymerase chain reaction; immunohistochemistry
Hrčak ID:
62770
URI
Publication date:
16.12.2010.
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