Research Article Isolation and Molecular Characterization of Brucella Isolates in Cattle Milk in Uganda Denis Rwabiita Mugizi, 1 Shaman Muradrasoli, 2 Sofia Boqvist, 2 Joseph Erume, 1 George William Nasinyama, 1 Charles Waiswa, 1 Gerald Mboowa, 3 Markus Klint, 4 and Ulf Magnusson 5 1 College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Bio-Security, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda 2 Division of Bacteriology and Food Safety, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Veterinary Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7028, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden 3 College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda 4 Section of Clinical Bacteriology, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, 75185 Uppsala, Sweden 5 Division of Reproduction, Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary, Medicine and Animal Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7054, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden Correspondence should be addressed to Denis Rwabiita Mugizi; dmugizi@covab.mak.ac.ug Received 1 July 2014; Revised 22 October 2014; Accepted 23 October 2014 Academic Editor: Jacques Cabaret Copyright © 2015 Denis Rwabiita Mugizi et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Brucellosis is endemic in livestock and humans in Uganda and its transmission involves a multitude of risk factors like consumption of milk from infected cattle. To shed new light on the epidemiology of brucellosis in Uganda the present study used phenotypic and molecular approaches to delineate the Brucella species, biovars, and genotypes shed in cattle milk. Brucella abortus without a biovar designation was isolated from eleven out of 207 milk samples from cattle in Uganda. ese isolates had a genomic monomorphism at 16 variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) loci and showed in turn high levels of genetic variation when compared with other African strains or other B. abortus biovars from other parts of the world. is study further highlights the usefulness of MLVA as an epidemiological tool for investigation of Brucella infections. 1. Introduction e genus Brucella has ten recognized species with more than 90% DNA homology [1, 2]. ese species cause brucellosis that is of economic and public health importance in terres- trial and aquatic animals and humans [1, 3]. Species of B. melitensis, B. abortus, some B. suis biovars, B. canis, B. ceti, and B. inopinata are zoonotic and in humans the infection causes a debilitating disease with relapsing fever and flu-like symptoms with multiple organ involvement [4–6]. In cattle Brucella causes abortions, placentitis, orchitis, mastitis, and prenatal death [5, 7]. Brucellosis in cattle is almost exclusively caused by B. abortus [8], but B. melitensis and B. suis have been implicated in some herds [9, 10] making the vaccination of cattle using vaccines targeting only B. abortus less effective in preventing brucellosis in cattle and transmission to humans [11, 12]. Brucella biovars and genotypes are known to be regionally restricted in their distribution [13] but the evolution of international travel and trade and changing ecosystems have led to introduction of new biovars and genotypes into regions and hosts where they were not previously found [3]. A study done in Uganda in 1958 isolated B. abortus biovar 3 from a human patient [14] and in the neighboring Kenya B. melitensis biovar 1 and B. abortus biovar 3 have been isolated from cattle [9]. Phylogenetic analysis of B. melitensis isolates in Kenya showed a high degree of homology with isolates in Israel and the B. abortus isolates closely resembled Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2015, Article ID 720413, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/720413