Isolation of Mycoplasma auris from milk of goats with clinical mastitis

The unexpected presence of Mycoplasma auris was evidenced in mastitis samples collected from a dairy goat herd under surveillance programmes of contagious agalactia (CA), a serious disease affecting Mediterranean small ruminant herds. Thus, control programs based on permanent analysis of milk from bulk tank and clinical mastitis, as well as ear swabs, are currently conducted in affected areas. In order to analyze the presence of CA-causing species, three, 11 and 18 of these samples were respectively collected from the same goat herd. Mycoplasmas were isolated in four milk samples from clinical mastitis and two ear swabs samples and no other pathogen was detected. The presence of CA-causing mycoplasmas was discarded by PCR. However, M. auris was identified in all the positive samples after the amplification and posterior PCR product sequencing of a partial fragment of their 16S-ribosomal ARN gene. As far as we know, these are the first isolations of M. auris from milk of goats with clinical mastitis.