Time-course monitoring of serum amyloid A in a cat with pancreatitis.

Time-course changes in the concentration of serum amyloid A (SAA), a major acute phase protein, were measured in a cat with pancreatitis over an 831-day period and compared with changes in WBC count and feline trypsin-like immunoreactivity (fTLI). SAA concentration was increased at the onset of the disease and gradually decreased over 5 days of treatment with an improvement in the clinical condition. In contrast, fTLI concentration and WBC count were not increased at the onset of the disease but increased gradually during the 5 days of treatment. Long-term monitoring from days 68 to 831 revealed a good correlation between SAA concentration and the reoccurrence of clinical signs in the cat; however, WBC count did not increase even with the exacerbation of disease. These findings suggest that the SAA concentration may be a useful marker for evaluating response to treatment and disease exacerbation in feline pancreatitis.

Molecular epidemiology of virulent Rhodococcus equi from foals in Brazil: virulence plasmids of 85-kb type I, 87-kb type I, and a new variant, 87-kb type III.

We investigated the prevalence of virulent Rhodococcus equi in clinical isolates from 41 foals (19 sporadic and seven endemic cases) in Brazil between 1991 and 2003. Of the 41 virulent isolates, six contained an 85-kb type I plasmid, 33 contained an 87-kb type I plasmid, both of which have been found in isolates from the Americas, and the remaining two contained a new variant, which did not display the EcoRI, EcoT22I and BamHI digestion patterns of the 11 representative plasmids already reported (85-kb types I-IV; 87-kb types I and II; 90-kb types I-V). We tentatively designated the new variant as the '87-kb type III' plasmid, because its BamHI digestion pattern is similar to that of the 87-kb type I plasmid. This is the first report of the molecular epidemiology surveillance of virulent R. equi in clinical isolates from Brazilian foals.

Rhodococcus equi virulence plasmids recovered from horses and their environment in Jeju, Korea: 90-kb type II and a new variant, 90-kb type V.

Rhodococcus equi was isolated from fecal and soil samples from four native Jeju horse farms and six Thoroughbred farms in Jeju, Korea. The isolates were examined for the presence of virulence-associated 15-17-kDa antigens (VapA) by colony blotting, using the monoclonal antibody 10G5, and for the gene encoding VapA by PCR. R. equi was isolated from all 36 soil samples collected from the 10 farms with between 5.0 x 10(2) and 7.5 x 10(4) colony-forming units (cfu) per gram of soil, and from 37 of 40 fecal samples with between 5.0 x 10(1) and 1.1 x 10 (5) cfu per gram of feces. Virulent R. equi was isolated from seven farms and appeared in 2.0% of isolates (10 of 508). Of the 10 virulent isolates, four contained a 90-kb type II plasmid, which has been found in isolates from the Kiso native horses of Japan, and the other six contained a new variant, which did not display the EcoRI and EcoT22I digestion patterns of the 10 representative plasmids already reported (85-kb types I, II, III, and IV; 87-kb types I and II; 90-kb types I, II, III, and IV). We designated the new variant as the "90-kb type V" plasmid, because its EcoRI digestion pattern is similar to that of the 90-kb type II plasmid. This is the first report of the prevalence of virulent R. equi in Jeju, Korea. The same virulence plasmid type is found in both Korean and Japanese isolates, providing insight into the origin, ancestry, and dispersal of native horses in Korea and Japan.