Peptide ELISA and FRET-qPCR Identified a Significantly Higher Prevalence of in Domestic Pigs Than in Feral Swine from the State of Alabama, USA.

is an important, highly prevalent, and diverse obligate intracellular pathogen infecting pigs. In order to investigate the prevalence and diversity of in the U.S., 276 whole blood samples from feral swine were collected as well as 109 fecal swabs and 60 whole blood samples from domestic pigs. -specific peptide ELISA identified anti- antibodies in 13.0% of the blood of feral swine (26/276) and 80.0% of the domestic pigs (48/60). FRET-qPCR and DNA sequencing found DNA in 99.1% of the fecal swabs (108/109) and 21.7% of the whole blood (13/60) of the domestic pigs, but not in any of the assayed blood samples (0/267) in feral swine. Phylogenetic comparison of partial ompA gene sequences and -specific multilocus sequencing typing (MLST) revealed significant genetic diversity of the identified in this study. Highly genetically diverse strains are prevalent in domestic pigs in the USA. As crowding strongly enhances the frequency and intensity of highly prevalent infections in animals, less population density in feral swine than in domestic pigs may explain the significantly lower prevalence in feral swine. A future study is warranted to obtain DNA from feral swine to perform genetic diversity of between commercial and feral pigs.