Poster Presentation Australian Society for Microbiology Annual Scientific Meeting 2022

Investigation of Australian Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae reveals the diversity of Australian isolates compared to rest of the world (#168)

John Webster 1 , Daniel Bogema 1 , Ian Marsh 1 , Narelle Sales 1 , Bethany Bowring 1 , Leah Stroud 1
  1. NSW Department of Primary Industries, Menangle, NSW, Australia

Porcine Erysipelas continues to be of worldwide concern to pig production as indicated in the scientific literature with regard to disease investigations in the US, Japan, China, and the UK. In Australia swine erysipelas management and control is dealt with at a farm level. Whilst microbiologically the bacteria are easily identified, the epidemiology of Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae is poorly understood in the Australian production context. We investigated 154 Australian porcine  isolates to gain knowledge on the population structure and genomic features within Australia and how these compare to the rest of the world. Australia was observed to have a large and unique diversity of isolates when analysed by  MLST, core genome phylogeny.  Australian isolates were also observed to contain novel surface protein sequence groups and higher rates of recombination.