Variable lipoprotein haemagglutinin (vlhA) gene sequence typing of mainly Dutch Mycoplasma synoviae isolates: comparison with vlhA sequences from Genbank and with amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis.

Molecular typing techniques with sufficient discriminatory power are required to better understand the transmission of Mycoplasma synoviae, a poultry pathogen with increasing clinical and economic relevance. A promising molecular technique is polymerase chain reaction and subsequent sequencing based on the conserved 5' region of the M. synoviae variable lipoprotein and haemagglutinin (vlhA) gene. This technique was used for genotyping 27 mainly Dutch M. synoviae isolates from different organs of various categories of poultry housed on different farms and collected during a period of 10 years. The obtained vlhA sequences were compared with those of M. synoviae strains from Genbank and data obtained by amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Grouping based on 100% similarity revealed nine genotypes. Some isolates had identical vlhA gene sequences although they originated from different geographical areas, different years and organs. AFLP analysis results largely confirmed the results obtained by vlhA sequence typing. Our findings raise concern regarding the discriminatory power of these techniques for its use in molecular epidemiology of Dutch M. synoviae isolates and for the differentiation between M. synoviae vaccine strains and field isolates, and indicate that molecular typing based on additional markers should be considered.