Standardization of diagnostics and antimicrobial susceptibility testing and clinical interpretation in animal mycoplasmas.

• Florence TARDY, ANSES, French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, France (Coordinator)
• Anne Gautier-Bouchardon, ANSES, French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, France (Observer)
• Maryne Jaÿ, ANSES, French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, France (Observer)
• Annet Heuvelink, Royal GD, Netherlands (Observer)
• Anneke Feberwee, Royal GD, Netherlands (Observer)
• Franca Moeller Palau-Ribes, Clinic for Birds, Reptilies, Amphibians and Fish, Germany (Observer)
• Miklós Gyuranecz, Veterinary Medical Research Institute, Hungary (Observer)
• Ana S. Ramirez, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain (Observer)
• José Poveda, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain (Observer)
• Ruben Rosales, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain (Observer)
• Jade Bokma, University of Ghent, Belgium (Observer)
• Marco Bottinelli, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, Italy (Observer)
• Salvatore Catania, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, Italy (Observer)
• Michele Gastaldelli, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, Italy (Observer)
• Anne Ridley, Animal and Plant Health Agency, United Kingdom (Observer)
• Inna Lysnyansky, Kimron veterinary Institute, Israel (Observer)
• Tarja Pohjanvirta, Finnish Food Authority, Finland (Observer)
• Tiina Autio, Finnish Food Authority, Finland (Observer)
• Gudrun Overesch, University of Bern, Switzerland (Observer)
• Joerg Jores, University of Bern, Switzerland (Observer)
• Emma Hurri, National Veterinary Insitute (SVA), Sweden (Observer)
• Märit Pringle, National Veterinary Insitute (SVA), Sweden (Observer)
• Anna Aspán, National Veterinary Insitute (SVA), Sweden (Observer)
• Glenn Browning, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Amir Noormohammadi, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Marc Marenda, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Nadeeka Wawegama, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Kelly Tivendale, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Katarzyna Dudek, National Veterinary Research Institute, Poland (Observer)
• Pollob Shil, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Paola Vaz, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Sara Mahdizadeh, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Anna Kanci, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Australia (Observer)
• Ewelina Szacawa, National Veterinary Research Institute, Poland (Observer)
• Jasini A. Musa, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria (Observer)
• Kannan Ganapathy, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom (Observer)
• Zsuzsa Kreizinger, Veterinary Medical Research Institute, Hungary (Observer)
• Dénes Grózner, Veterinary Medical Research Institute, Hungary (Observer)
• Eszter Zsófia Nagy, Veterinary Medical Research Institute, Hungary (Observer)
• Claire Becker, VetAgro Sup, France (Observer)
• Farhan Anwar Khan, University of Agriculture Peshawar, Pakistan (Observer)
• Ijaz Ahmad, University of Agriculture Peshawar, Pakistan (Observer)
• Joachim Spergser, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria (Observer)
• Evelyn Lobo, Centro National de Sanidad Agropecuaria, Cuba (Observer)
• Nick Vereecke, University of Ghent, Belgium (Observer)
• Lucia Manso-Silvan, CIRAD, Agricultural Research for Development, France (Observer)
• Anne Boissière, CIRAD, Agricultural Research for Development, France (Observer)
• Armelle Peyraud, CIRAD, Agricultural Research for Development, France (Observer)

Animal mycoplasmas are major bacterial pathogens causing various diseases in livestock and pets and also significant economic losses in herds. Their diagnostics and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) are difficult because of their growth characteristics. Standard usual procedures for other bacteria don’t apply for mycoplasmas. As a consequence, their clinical impact and their contribution to antimicrobial use and resistance is often disregarded. Because of their intrinsic resistance to the broadly used ampicilins/penicilins family and the increasing number of acquired resistances to other antimicrobial families, mycoplasmas must be subjected to an improved antimicrobial resistance surveillance. The MyMIC network is developed as a necessary first step towards this aim. It will allow sharing best practices and harmonised procedures between expert laboratories as well as proposing future new required developments. Furthermore, aggregation of AST data from different laboratories will permit first proposal of tentative epidemiological cut-offs as a surrogate to clinical breakpoints in order to help clinical interpretation of AST results. Review on new alternative AST techniques, antimicrobial use across the different animal sectors and pharmacologic data will come as a complement to the diagnostic and AST guidelines expected from the MyMIC network. Lastly MycMIC is expected to be the basis for construction of future laboratories projects for animal mycoplasmas diagnostics and AST methods comparison and validation.