phylogenetic and molecular analysis based on genes 16s-rrna, ompa and pomp to identify chlamydia abortus infection occurrence at the milk samples of goats and sheep in west azerbaijan of iran

Background and objectives: enzootic abortion in sheep and goats, also called ovine enzootic abortion (oea) or enzootic abortion of ewes (eae), is caused by chlamydia abortus. the disease has a major economic impact as it represents the most important cause of lamb loss in sheep in parts of europe, north america and africa. this serious and potentially life-threat- ening zoonosis can also affect pregnant women after contact with lambing ewes, leading to severe febrile illness in pregnancy and loss of the foetus. materials and methods: the present study was conducted to the phylogenetic and molecular analysis based on genes 16s-rrna, ompa and pomp of c. abortus in milk samples collected from sheep and goats in west azerbaijan province, iran. during 2018, a total number of 360 milk samples were collected from sheep (n = 180) and goats (n = 180) of different regions of the province. all milk samples were subjected to dna extraction and examined by pcr. results: among 360 milk samples collected from sheep and goats, 31 (8.611%; 95% ci=6.13-11.96) were positive for chlamydia spp. the helicase, 16s-rrna and ompa genes were examined and resulted in 8, 31, 31 of positive samples respectively. the accession numbers have been deposited in genbank (ncbi) (mt367602 and mt367603). conclusion: phylogenetic analysis based on the gene of helicase showed that most of the isolates shared similarity > 99.97%.