Bovine TB: Research project summary
Project SE3209: Testing of vaccine candidates for bovine tuberculosis using a low dose aerosol challenge guinea pig model.
Project duration: 5 years
The aim of this project was to test vaccine candidates so that suitable candidates could be taken forward for testing in cattle. The model, a low dose aerosol challenge guinea pig model, was previously developed in collaboration between the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) and Health Protection Agency, Porton Down, Salisbury.
There are a number of approaches to vaccine development which have proved successful against other organisms. This project tested vaccines developed in SE3208 (development of vaccine candidates against Mycobacterium bovis) by exploiting a number of recent advances in (i) vaccinology, (ii) manipulation of M. bovis DNA, (iii) the understanding of the immune response against M. bovis infection and (iv) the recently completed genome sequences of M. tuberculosis, M. bovis and BCG (SE3206).
This project was part of a co-ordinated approach to vaccination by the VLA and thus this project sat within the context of other projects.
The major finding of the report is that in future the mouse model and not the guinea pig model should be used to screen vaccines for use in prime-boost strategies to improve the protective efficacy of BCG. This is now the VLA strategy for testing vaccine candidates and has been taken forward in the continued development of cattle vaccines (SE3224).
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Page last modified:
July 7, 2008