Patent ID: 7074559

Claim:
A method for detecting the presence or absence of M. paratuberculosis in a biological sample, comprising the steps of: contacting said biological sample with an isolated nucleic acid under standard amplification conditions, wherein said nucleic acid comprises a nucleic acid molecule, wherein said nucleic acid molecule is at least 19 nucleotides in length, wherein said nucleic acid molecule has at least 75% sequence identity to an aligned portion of SEQ ID NO:23 or the complement of SEQ ID NO:23, wherein an amplification product is produced if M. paratuberculosis nucleic acid is present in said biological sample; and detecting the presence or absence of said amplification product, wherein the presence of said amplification product indicates the presence of M. paratuberculosis in the biological sample, and wherein the absence of said amplification product indicates the absence of M. paratuberculosis in the biological sample.