Researchers develop tests for Johne's

PAUL, MINN. - 8/30/05 - Researchers at the University of Minnesota and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Animal Disease Center (USDA) created tests that can detect and differentiate the bacteria that cause Johne's disease.

Scientists completed sequencing the genome of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, the bacteria that causes the major chronic wasting disease found in dairy cattle, sheep, goats and other ruminants. The gene sequencing will allow researchers to develop new ways of early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of a disease that costs the dairy industry more than $200 million a year.

The results of the sequencing analysis are available on-line at www.pathogenoics.umn.edu, and more about Johne's disease can be found at www.johnes.org.

"This is a horrible, hard-to-diagnose disease, largely because we lacked an understanding of the basic genetic make-up of the organism and the tools to differentiate the bacterium from other closely related species," said Vivek Kapur, BVSc, Ph.D., principal investigator, faculty of the University of Minnesota Medical School and College of Veterinary Medicine, director of the university's Advanced Genetic Analysis Center, and co-director of the Biomedical Genomics Center. "The genome sequence sheds new light on the genes and biochemical pathways in the bacterium and the research offers a starting point for defining the mechanisms by which the organism causes disease and helping devise new strategies to detect infected animals and ultimately help control the spread of the organism."