Vol. 9, Issue 2, Part E (2024)

Recently the discovery of novel infectious agents in dairy and meat products from cattle of European origin (Bos Taurus) has been reported. These pathogens called as “Bovine Meat and Milk Factors (BMMFs)” are small single stranded circular DNA molecules that have sequence similarity to plasmids of Acinetobacter baumanni and some viral agents. Four groups of BMMFs have been so far reported to be isolated from serum, milk and meat of large and small ruminants. The present study was carried out to standardise a PCR for the detection of circular DNA in the serum of cattle. Serum samples were collected from apparently healthy purebred Holstein Friesian cattle and DNA was isolated. The DNA was then subjected to rolling circle amplification (RCA) and PCR was carried out with specific primers for BMMF. The annealing temperature was standardised at 58ºC. The amplified products were sent for sequencing. Sequencing of the amplicons revealed a product of about 2kb with 99% sequence similarity to previously isolated BMMF2.