Prevalence of bovine dermatophilosis and disease-associated alleles in zebu Goudali cattle and their Italian Simmental crosses ranching in the western highland plateau savannah of Cameroon

Abundance of native pastures makes Cameroon’s western highland savannah (WHS) a hotspot for low-input beef-type cattle. Dumbo Ranch is central to cattle seed stock multiplication in WHS and holds that Dermatophilus congolensis infection undermines production. The bovine BoLA-DRB3 has been variously demonstrated as the principal gene of the major histocompatibility locus associated with immunity and resistance to dermatophilosis in cattle. We studied the profile of dermatophilosis prevalence in zebu Goudali (G) and its Simmental composite, SimGoud (SG), at Dumbo Ranch and determined the distribution of a dermatophilosis-associated susceptibility allele of the BoLA-DRB3 gene by allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We recorded a 42 % prevalence of dermatophilosis in the studied cohort (337 animals). Dermatophilosis was more common in older cattle than in cattle ≤36 months (p ≤ 0.05). G was more affected compared to SG, because of the prevalence of the disease in the oldest animals and the age distribution of the experimental subjects. No susceptible homozygote was observed. About 85 and 15 % of the cohort carried the homozygous resistant and heterozygous condition, respectively. This genotype distribution was not affected by cattle type. The study confirms the presence of dermatophilosis among G and SG cattle in WHS. However, there was no correlation between the presence of the disease-associated susceptible allele considered and clinical manifestation. Screening for this dermatophilosis resistance-associated allele of BoLA-DRB3 gene appeared not useful for selection of G and SG in WHS.