Chlamydophila (formerly Chlamydia) pneumoniae

Test code: B0003 - Qualitative detection of Chlamydia pneumoniae by polymerase chain reaction.

Three Chlamydia species can cause pneumonia: Chlamydia pneumoniae, Chlamydia psittaci, and Chlamydia trachomatis. All are small, gram-negative, obligate intracellular bacteria.

In humans, infection with C. pneumoniae can cause mild pneumonia or bronchitis in adolescents and young adults. Older adults may experience more severe disease and repeated infections. Recent research has shown that C. pneumoniae can infect other animals besides humans (Pospisil and Canderle, 2004). C. pneumoniae has been isolated from horses, koalas affected by ocular and genital infections, Australian and African frogs, from a Tanzanian chameleon, a green sea turtle in the Cayman Islands, an iguana, puff adders and a Burmese python. All of the infected animals had developed symptoms similar to those of infected humans

Culture detection of C. pneumonia is difficult because it is an intracellular bacterium. However, PCR is a highly specific and sensitive detection method, and is often preferred for clinical diagnosis of this organism.

Utilities:

• Help confirm the disease causing agent
• Shorten the time required to confirm a clinical diagnosis of C. pneumoniae infection.
• Help ensure that animal populations are free of C. pneumoniae
• Early prevention of spread of C. pneumoniae
• Minimize personnel exposure to C. pneumoniae
• Safety monitoring of biological products that derive from susceptible animals

References:
Pospisil, L. and Canderle, J. (2004) Chlamydia (Chlamydophila) pneumoniae in animals: a review. Vet. Med. – Czech, 49: 129–134

Specimen requirements: Respiratory swab, or 0.2 ml whole blood in EDTA (purple top) tube, or 0.2 ml serum, or 0.2 ml sputum, or 0.2 ml fresh, frozen or fixed tissue, or bronchial lavage.

Contact Zoologix if advice is needed to determine an appropriate specimen type for a specific diagnostic application. For specimen types not listed here, please contact Zoologix to confirm specimen acceptability and shipping instructions.

For all specimen types, if there will be a delay in shipping, or during very warm weather, refrigerate specimens until shipped and ship with a cold pack unless more stringent shipping requirements are specified. Frozen specimens should be shipped so as to remain frozen in transit. See shipping instructions for more information.

Turnaround time: 2 business days

Methodology: Qualitative PCR

Normal range: Nondetected