Studies on Streptococcus agalactiae isolated from bovine mastitis in Indonesia

All 83 bacterial strains isolated from seven farms in three areas of the island of Java in Indonesia investigated in the present study could be identified as Streptococcus agalactiae. Identification was performed by cultural, biochemical and serological properties and by polymerase chain reaction amplification of species-specific parts of the gene encoding the 16S rRNA, the 16S-23S rDNA intergenic spacer region and the CAMP factor (cfb) gene. All isolates were unpigmented. almost all of the isolates had the serotype pattern II/X. Despite these similarities a macrorestriction analysis of the chromosomal DNA of the bacteria revealed no significant homologies of the DNA-fingerprints of the S. agalactiae from the various areas. This last finding might possibly indicate that a single ancestral unpigmented serotype II/X S. agalactiae clone was responsible for the mastitis situation on Java and had evolved separately in the various farms and regions.