Bacteria Associated with Respiratory Disease in Dogs (BARDiD)

In late 2022, a group of dogs in NH came down with a mysterious respiratory illness. Testing negative on a syndromic panel for kennel cough, samples were submitted to HCGS to try to determine the pathogen responsible for the disease. Through metagenomics, a small fragment of bacteria was detected in a subset of the samples that is closely related to a pathogen found in human airways. Phylogeny revealed that this pathogen is much unlike anything else, falling far away from the nearest bacteria family members.

Multiple sequencing runs at HCGS have revealed fragments of this genome, however its peculiar nature makes it difficult to sequence with our standard procedures. The bacteria’s incredibly low GC content and relatively small abundance in samples is commanding a different approach to sequencing beyond metagenomics.

Current work is focused on developing a unique amplicon tiling scheme which can target 5000 bp sections at a time using primers designed to the pathogen. By using PCR to amplify the fragments selectively, we are hopeful this tiled amplicon screen will help us unveil more of this incredibly odd bacteria.