Abstract

Ornithobacterium rhinotracheale has been identified as a newly emerging respiratory bacterial pathogen that has been causing significant economic losses to the poultry industry. In this study, a total of 30 isolates of O. rhinotracheale isolated (2 from layer pullets, 5 from broilers, 21 from turkeys and 2 standart strains) from chickens and turkeys were characterized by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), RAPD-PCR and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) analysis. The isolates of O. rhinotracheale identified by biochemical tests were also confirmed by PCR. Amplification product of 784 bp was obtained, which is corresponding to the expected size. All of them were characterized as O. rhinotracheale. The random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) profiles using OPG-11 primer and the protein profiles used in SDS-PAGE of the O. rhinotracheale strains show high variability in results of Neighbor Joining (NJ) and Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Means (UPGMA). All field strains isolated from turkeys, broilers and layers show different RAPD and protein profiles.

Key words: Ornithobacterium rhinotracheale, broiler, layer, turkey, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), random amplified polymorphic DNA- polymerase chain reaction (RAPD-PCR), sodium dodecyl sulfate- polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE).