Canine brucellosis, a worldwide zoonotic disease, is mainly caused by Brucella canis. In the present study, we isolated a Brucella strain (CD3) from a subclinically infected pet dog in Sichuan Province, Southwestern China. Classical biotyping methods and molecular biological tests (BCSP31 and BcSS PCR) proved that the strain belonged to B. canis. Furthermore, B. canis CD3 and another two B. canis strains (WJ5 and YA4), which were all isolated from pet dogs in Sichuan, were genotyped using multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Our results showed that the three B. canis strains were identified as the same sequence type (ST21). The present study is the first to report B. canis strain from a subclinically infected pet dog in China, indicating a potential threat to public health posed by subclinical infections in pet dogs. We suggest that screening for B. canis should be incorporated into routine medical examination of pet dogs and other companion animals in areas with a history of animal or human brucellosis.
Keywords: B. canis; MLST; pet dog; public health; subclinical infection.