Anti-pld antibodies are considered good biomarkers in the serodiagnosis of the infection in small ruminants, and satisfactory specificity and sensitivity levels were seen when recombinant pld or bacterial culture supernatants were employed as antigens in the development of immunodiagnosis assays (Sutherland et al., 1987; Menzies et al., 2004; Rebouças et al., 2011). This evidence concerns the gene GPLD1 and infection.