Abstract
Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis is an intracellular bacterium, proliferates inside the macrophages, causes caseous
lymphadenitis in small ruminants and is also responsible for human lymphadenitis. In current study, clinical signs and
necropsy lesions suggestive of caseous lymphadenitis were observed in Chinkara deer (n=36), spotted deer (n=04) and
Mouflen sheep (n=04) in a period of three years. Different pus samples were obtained from various superficial and internal
lymph nodes, lungs, liver and spleen at the time of postmortem examination. All the collected samples were processed for
microbiological investigations. C. pseudotuberculosis bacterium was cultured and identified in a total of 33 (75%) animals
having clinical and necropsy lesions. The presence of C. pseudotuberculosis infection was significantly higher in older
animals as compared to young animals. Morphologically, colonies were brown-yellowish in color, non-hemolytic on 5%
sheep blood agar and biochemical characteristics were similar to C. pseudotuberculosis except urea test. Necropsy showed
presence of different tubercles containing caseous material in visceral organs such as liver, spleen, lungs and intestinal
mesenteric lymph nodes. Microscopically, tissue sections obtained from lungs, spleen, liver and intestinal mesenteric lymph
nodes infected from C. pseudotuberculosis were plugged with abscess. The findings of our study indicate that wild animals
are a reservoir for zoonotic Corynebacterium.
