Prevalence and Molecular Characterization of Mycobacterium avium subsp. Paratuberculosis in Raw milk of dairy herds.

Abstract

The main goal in this thesis is to examine the extent of MAP in a dairy herd, and to identify suitable approaches to reduce their presence in dairy products. To achieve our goal, we propose the following aims: Aim 1: Examine the presence of NTM specially, MAP in dairy herd. Aim 2: Examine the role of BTM and in-line milk filters in the screening of mycobacteria. Aim 3: Evaluate nisin to reduce MAP in milk. The main objective of the first section of the study is to investigate the existence of different members of Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) in raw milk at the farm level through examining the milk filters as well as tank milk samples from a dairy herd in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. A medium-size local dairy herd in Wisconsin-Madison with 80 lactating cows was subjected for this investigation during the months of January to October of 2016 . Milk filters and raw milk samples were collected from the bulk tank (50 ml) with total 85 each (milk filters, and tank milk samples) total n=170.