review · Pathogens
Bovine tuberculosis is a widespread infectious disease affecting domestic and wild animals, presenting significant economic and public health challenges globally. Primarily caused by Mycobacterium bovis and occasionally other pathogenic mycobacteria, the disease is increasingly complicated by multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant strains. Detection relies on both antemortem and postmortem procedures. Antemortem diagnostics evaluate cellular or humoral immune responses, while postmortem techniques involve visual inspection, tissue palpation, histopathology, bacterial isolation, and polymerase chain reaction testing. In addition, sequencing and bioinformatics tools are gaining traction for detecting mutations, typing strains, conducting phylogenetic assessments, and studying molecular epidemiology. Effective management requires understanding these diagnostic approaches alongside the ongoing emergence of resistant mycobacteria.
Bovine tuberculosis impacts agricultural livestock and wildlife, creating cross-cutting challenges for food security, animal health, and human public health. The emergence of multidrug-resistant strains makes disease control harder. Accurate detection through combined traditional and advanced diagnostic tools helps veterinary and health authorities trace infections, identify drug-resistant variants, and limit disease transmission between animal populations and humans.
The review highlights diagnostic applications relevant to veterinary diagnostics developers, surveillance programmes, and livestock disease managers. Diagnostic tools span established antemortem immune assays and postmortem molecular testing such as PCR, alongside early-stage implementations of sequencing and bioinformatics pipelines for tracking resistant strains. The abstract synthesises existing techniques and emerging analytical tools rather than describing a specific tested product or commercial pathway.
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Bovine tuberculosis is a serious infectious disease affecting a wide range of domesticated and wild animals, representing a worldwide economic and public health burden. The disease is caused by <i>Mycobacterium</i><i>bovis</i> and infrequently by other pathogenic mycobacteria. The problem of bovine tuberculosis is complicated when the infection is associated with multidrug and extensively drug resistant <i>M. bovis.</i> Many techniques are used for early diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis, either being antemortem or postmortem, each with its diagnostic merits as well as limitations. Antemortem techniques depend either on cellular or on humoral immune responses, while postmortem diagnosis depends on adequate visual inspection, palpation, and subsequent diagnostic procedures such as bacterial isolation, characteristic histopathology, and PCR to reach the final diagnosis. Recently, sequencing and bioinformatics tools have gained increasing importance for the diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis, including, but not limited to typing, detection of mutations, phylogenetic analysis, molecular epidemiology, and interactions occurring within the causative mycobacteria. Consequently, the current review includes consideration of bovine tuberculosis as a disease, conventional and recent diagnostic methods, and the emergence of MDR-<i>Mycobacterium</i> species.
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DOI: 10.3390/pathogens11070715
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