Molecular characterization of Brucella ceti from a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) with osteomyelitis in the western Pacific

Although the presence of Brucella spp. in the western Pacific has been suggested by epidemiological studies on cetaceans, it has not been confirmed by bacterial isolation. Here, for the first time, we report that a marine Brucella strain was isolated in the western Pacific from a bottlenose dolphin with osteomyelitis. The isolate from the lesion was confirmed to be B. ceti of sequence type 27 by multilocus sequence typing and Bruce-ladder PCR. Infrequent-restriction-site PCR and omp2 gene sequencing revealed that molecular characteristics of this isolate were similar to those of Brucella DNA previously detected from minke whales in the western North Pacific. These results suggest that genetically related Brucella strains circulate in cetacean species in this region.