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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

CP16: Horses & Cows - 10 min talks
Location: Lecture Theatre 2
Session Chair: Abdul Jabbar, The University of Melbourne
Session Chair: Narelle Dybing, Murdoch University

Presentation 1

Simultaneous Detection of Bovine Venereal Pathogens in Bulls Using Long‑Read Sequencing

Zhetao Zhang¹, Gry B. Boe-Hansen^1,2, Chian Teng Ong¹, Hannah V. Siddle¹, Ala E. Tabor¹

1: The University of Queensland, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture & Food Innovation, Centre for Animal Science, St Lucia 4072, Queensland, Australia; 2: The University of Queensland, School of Veterinary Science, Gatton, 4343, Queensland, Australia

Bovine Trichomonosis, caused by the protozoan parasite Tritrichomonas foetus, poses significant economic threats to the global cattle industry. In Australia, disease control relies heavily on accurate diagnosis followed by culling infected bulls. However, conventional diagnostic methods, including culture and quantitative PCR (qPCR), are limited by the complex microbial environment of the bull prepuce, which leads to false-negative and positive results. These arise from T. foetus low abundance and cross‑reactive trichomonad species.

To address these limitations, we developed and tested a diagnostic test using Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long‑read sequencing to simultaneously detect multiple venereal-transmitted organisms, T. foetus and Campylobacter fetus subsp. venerealis. Using artificially spiked DNA samples and field samples, our pipeline improved sensitivity and specificity, achieving detection limits for T. foetus down to 0.4 ng and identifying 50.0% more positives (n =9) than qPCR (n =6) across samples from persistently infected bulls. Simultaneously detecting C. fetus subsp. venerealis down to 0.04 ng, lower than its 0.1 ng qPCR limit.

These findings highlight the potential of ONT long-read sequencing as a robust, single-test alternative for accurately detecting T. foetus and C. fetus subsp. venerealis in bulls. Its adoption would enhance disease surveillance and help safeguard the Australian cattle industry.