“…M. ovipneumoniae has been found in goats (Livingston & Gauer, 1979; Mohan, Obwolo, & Hill, 1992; Rifatbegovic, Maksimovic, & Hulaj, 2011; Rong et al, 2014), bighorn sheep (Besser et al, 2014), moose, caribou, mule, white-tailed deer, and mule deer (Highland et al, 2018) besides sheep. Previous studies of the pathogenic mechanisms of M. ovipneumoniae showed that this bacterium caused direct cell death via the reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling–mediated mitochondrial apoptotic pathway (Li et al, 2016; Xue et al, 2017). Moreover, the M. ovipneumoniae capsular polysaccharide caused the apoptosis of sheep airway epithelial cells via the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK)/P38 MAPK signaling pathway (Jiang et al, 2017; Weiser et al, 2012).…”