Ml. Hanninen et al., TRANSMISSION OF CANINE GASTRIC HELICOBACTER-SALOMONIS INFECTION FROM DAM TO OFFSPRING AND BETWEEN PUPPIES, Veterinary microbiology, 62(1), 1998, pp. 47-58
H. bizzozeronii CCUG 35045, a new canine gastric Helicobacter spp. was
used for experimental infection of four weaned puppies at 7 weeks of
age. Controls were four nonchallenged puppies. The puppies originated
from two dams which had Helicobacter salomonis infection in biopsy sam
ples taken 3 weeks before the delivery but which had urease, brush cyt
ology and culture-negative biopsy samples taken 7 weeks after antimicr
obial treatment (metronidazole, amoxicillin, bismuth subcitrate). Both
dams were detected urease- and Helicobacter-positive again three and
a half months after therapy. Dam B was shown to be colonised with the
similar genotype of H. salomonis for more than 2 years. Unexpectedly,
H. salomonis was also cultured from gastric biopsy samples of the nonc
hallenged puppies three times during 7 months. When H. salomonis isola
tes of dams and puppies were studied by ribotyping (HaeIII, ClaI or Ps
tI) they were shown to be identical although the HaeIII and PstI REA p
atterns of dam A differed from the patterns of dam B and nonchallenged
group by one fragment. PFGE pattern analysis of NotI digests, however
, revealed that the isolates of the puppies were identical with the is
olates of dam B, and differed from the isolates of dam A. The isolates
of the dams and puppies in the nonchallenged group were metronidazole
-resistant. The antimicrobial therapy had merely suppressed, but not e
radicated, the infection of the dams. These studies suggested that pup
pies may acquire gastric Helicobacter infection from dams during the l
actation period and puppies can infect each other during their early l
ife. PFGE pattern analysis was shown to be a more distinguishing metho
d than ribotyping to study the similarity of the isolates. (C) 1998 El
sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.