Sensitivity of a Real Time PCR Assay for Bovine Trichomonosis in Pooled Preputial Samples

Abstract

Tritrichomonas foetus has long plagued the beef industry all around the world (Campbell et al, 1993). Control of trichomonosis (trich) in beef herds is mostly based on eliminating infected bulls (Clark et al, 1983). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods are gradually replacing traditional culture in the detection of trich in preputial scrape samples. A previous study showed a sensitivity and specificity of 100% when pools of five individual samples were tested using conventional PCR (Kennedy et al, 2008). The use of a real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) based assay has been shown to improve sensitivity and specificity over conventional PCR and culture methods (McMillen et al, 2006). The objective of the present study was to evaluate the sensitivity of a commercially available RT-PCR assay for trich in pooled preputial samples at different ratios.