Bovine TB: Research project summary
Project SE3015: Mycobacterium bovis pathogenesis
Project duration: 3 years 6 months
This project has considered alternative methods for the detection and
enumeration of Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) in clinical samples.
Results support the use of the currently utilised culture techniques as
the most reliable and sensitive detection method. An experimental model
was used to look at how the route of infection changed the nasal shedding
of M. bovis. It was found that higher infection doses resulted
in more pathology and that an intra-nasal model produced more nasal shedding
than an intra-tracheal one. Using an experimental in-contact M. bovis
transmission model it was found that nasal shedding of M. bovis
differed between animals, varied over time and could be sporadic in nature.
Experiments to determine if there was a reduced ability to detect M.
bovis positive animals due to repeated skin testing prior to exposure
were unable to detect any significant differences between groups.
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Page last modified:
July 7, 2008