About the Authors

Hosny El-Adawy

hosnyeladawy@yahoo.com

Affiliations Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Institute of Bacterial Infections and Zoonoses, Jena, Germany, Institute for Poultry Diseases, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany, Department of Poultry Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt

Helmut Hotzel

Affiliation Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Institute of Bacterial Infections and Zoonoses, Jena, Germany

Herbert Tomaso

Affiliation Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Institute of Bacterial Infections and Zoonoses, Jena, Germany

Heinrich Neubauer

Affiliation Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Institute of Bacterial Infections and Zoonoses, Jena, Germany

Eduardo N. Taboada

Affiliation Laboratory for Foodborne Zoonoses, Public Health Agency of Canada, Lethbridge, Canada

Ralf Ehricht

Affiliation Alere Technologies GmbH, Jena, Germany

Hafez M. Hafez

Affiliation Institute for Poultry Diseases, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Competing Interests

RE worked in Alere Technologies GmbH, Löbstedter Straße 103–105, D-07749 Jena, Germany and with no other relevant declarations relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in development or marketed products etc. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Participated in the multiple alignments and selected the primers that were used in the study: HE HH. Participated in the generation of overlapping fragments as well as alignment of the sequences: HH. Involved in phylogenetic evaluation: HE. Read and approved the final manuscript: HE HH HT HN ENT RE HMH. Conceived and designed the experiments: HE HH HT HN HMH. Performed the experiments: HE HH RE. Analyzed the data: HE HH ENT RE HMH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HE HH. Wrote the paper: HE HH HMH.