Pulmonary microbial profiles in slaughtered Duolang sheep from Kashgar stratified by gross lung lesions: implications for respiratory disease surveillance.

Ovine pneumonia is a multifactorial respiratory disease in which complex microbial communities and antimicrobial resistance complicate disease control. This study characterized pulmonary microbial profiles in 49 slaughtered Duolang sheep from Kashgar stratified by gross lung lesions (apparently healthy, n = 10; pneumonic, n = 39) using pathology, bacterial isolation, Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae PCR, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Suppurative pneumonia predominated in pneumonic lungs (31/39, 79.5%), and M. ovipneumoniae positivity was higher than in apparently healthy lungs (69.2% vs. 20.0%; OR = 9.00, 95% CI, 1.66-48.88). Among 220 bacterial isolates recovered, co-isolation of at least two non-Escherichia genera remained detectable in at least 20/39 pneumonic lungs after exclusion of Escherichia. Of 120 isolates tested, 17 showed multidrug-resistant phenotypes. In the 16S subset, pneumonic lungs showed higher richness and Shannon diversity (FDR-adjusted P = 0.045), with nominal enrichment of Pasteurellaceae and Mycoplasmataceae, whereas beta diversity did not differ. Despite overlap between pneumonia and M. ovipneumoniae status in the sequencing subset, these findings support integrated surveillance of pulmonary microbial profiles and antimicrobial resistance in ovine respiratory disease.