The comparison and characterisation of glycolytic mycoplasmas isolated from the respiratory tract of sheep.

Nine strains of glycolytic mycoplasmas isolated from the respiratory tract of apparently healthy sheep, pneumonic sheep and sheep with pulmonary adenomatosis (SPA) were compared with a Queensland strain (Y98) of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae. All strains were very similar in their reactions in 14 biochemical tests and in their sensitivities to optochin, digitonin, sodium polyanethol sulphonate, and 11 antibiotics. Polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis and serological cross-reactions by the agar-gel double diffusion, metabolic inhibition (MI) and growht-inhibition (GI) tests also showed that all strains could be classified as M. ovipneumoniae. The MI and GI tests, however, showed considerable intraspecific differences among strains, with apparent polarisation of SPA strains and non-SPA strains at opposite ends of the antigenic spectrum. Two representative strains were tested by the MI test against antisera to 39 mycoplasma species or serogroups, with negative results.