Brachyspira pilosicoli
Brachyspira pilosicoli is a Gram-negative, spiral-shaped, obligate anaerobe bacterium. It is a member of the Spirochaete family. The bacterium is loosely coiled and is 6–11 µm long. It has several flagellae, inserted at either pole of the cell, and a lipopolysaccharide cell wall. It causes intestinal spirochaetosis in pigs, but it has also been isolated from dogs, birds and mice. It causes zoonotic infection in humans, with infection thought to originate from dogs.
| Brachyspira pilosicoli | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Bacteria |
| Phylum: | Spirochaetes |
| Order: | Spirochaetales |
| Family: | Brachyspiraceae |
| Genus: | Brachyspira |
| Species: | B. pilosicoli |
| Binomial name | |
| Brachyspira pilosicoli (Trott & al., 1996) Ochiai & al., 1998 | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
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Lifecycle and pathogenesis
Infection of B. pilosicoli is acquired the faecal-oral route. Once in the alimentary tract, the bacterium invades its target cells in the large intestine causing oedema, haemorrhage and the infiltration by inflammatory cells. The consequences of this are the sloughing of cells into the intestinal lumen, malabsorption and secretory diarrhoea.
Diseases
B. pilosicoli is the cause of porcine intestinal spirochaetosis. The presence of the spirochaetes in grey-pink diarrhoea is diagnostic.
See also
References
- Brachyspira pilosicoli (Trott & al., 1996) Ochiai & al., 1998 in GBIF Secretariat (2017). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via https://www.gbif.org/species/5428183 on 2019-03-02.
- Brachyspira pilosicoli, reviewed and published by Wikivet at http://en.wikivet.net/Brachyspira_pilosicoli, accessed 23/08/2011.