Reproduction of contagious caprine pleuropneumonia reveals the ability of convalescent sera to reduce hydrogen peroxide production in vitro.

Contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP), caused by Mycoplasma capricolum subsp. capripneumoniae is a severe disease widespread in Africa and Asia. Limited knowledge is available on the pathogenesis of this organism, mainly due to the lack of a robust in vivo challenge model and the means to do site-directed mutagenesis. This work describes the establishment of a novel caprine challenge model for CCPP that resulted in 100% morbidity using a combination of repeated intranasal spray infection followed by a single transtracheal infection employing the recent Kenyan outbreak strain ILRI181. Diseased animals displayed CCPP-related pathology and the bacteria could subsequently be isolated from pleural exudates and lung tissues in concentrations of up to 109 bacteria per mL as well as in the trachea using immunohistochemistry. Reannotation of the genome sequence of ILRI181 and F38T revealed the existence of genes encoding the complete glycerol uptake and metabolic pathways involved in hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production in the phylogenetically related pathogen M. mycoides subsp. mycoides. Furthermore, the expression of L-α-glycerophosphate oxidase (GlpO) in vivo was confirmed. In addition, the function of the glycerol metabolism was verified by measurement of production of H2O2 in medium containing physiological serum concentrations of glycerol. Peroxide production could be inhibited with serum from convalescent animals. These results will pave the way for a better understanding of host-pathogen interactions during CCPP and subsequent vaccine development.

Vaccine Quality Is a Key Factor to Determine Thermal Stability of Commercial Newcastle Disease (ND)Vaccines.

Vaccination against Newcastle disease (ND), a devastating viral disease of chickens, is often hampered by thermal inactivation of the live vaccines, in particular in tropical and hot climate conditions. In the past, "thermostable" vaccine strains (I-2) were proposed to overcome this problem but previous comparative studies did not include formulation-specific factors of commercial vaccines. In the current study, we aimed to verify the superior thermal stability of commercially formulated I-2 strains by comparing six commercially available ND vaccines. Subjected to 37 °C as lyophilized preparations, two vaccines containing I-2 strains were more sensitive to inactivation than a third I-2 vaccine or compared to three other vaccines based on different ND strains. However, reconstitution strains proved to have a comparable tenacity. Interestingly, all vaccines still retained a sufficient virus dose for protection (106 EID50) after 1 day at 37 °C. These results suggest that there are specific factors that influence thermal stability beyond the strain-specific characteristics. Exposing ND vaccines to elevated temperatures of 51 and 61 °C demonstrated that inactivation of all dissolved vaccines including I-2 vaccine strains occurred within 2 to 4 h. The results revealed important differences among the vaccines and emphasize the importance of the quality of a certain vaccine preparation rather than the strain it contains. These data highlight that regardless of the ND strain used for vaccine preparation, the appropriate cold chain is mandatory for keeping live ND vaccines efficiency in hot climates.

Contagious Bovine and Caprine Pleuropneumonia: a research community's recommendations for the development of better vaccines.

Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) and contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP) are major infectious diseases of ruminants caused by mycoplasmas in Africa and Asia. In contrast with the limited pathology in the respiratory tract of humans infected with mycoplasmas, CBPP and CCPP are devastating diseases associated with high morbidity and mortality. Beyond their obvious impact on animal health, CBPP and CCPP negatively impact the livelihood and wellbeing of a substantial proportion of livestock-dependent people affecting their culture, economy, trade and nutrition. The causative agents of CBPP and CCPP are Mycoplasma mycoides subspecies mycoides and Mycoplasma capricolum subspecies capripneumoniae, respectively, which have been eradicated in most of the developed world. The current vaccines used for disease control consist of a live attenuated CBPP vaccine and a bacterin vaccine for CCPP, which were developed in the 1960s and 1980s, respectively. Both of these vaccines have many limitations, so better vaccines are urgently needed to improve disease control. In this article the research community prioritized biomedical research needs related to challenge models, rational vaccine design and protective immune responses. Therefore, we scrutinized the current vaccines as well as the challenge-, pathogenicity- and immunity models. We highlight research gaps and provide recommendations towards developing safer and more efficacious vaccines against CBPP and CCPP.

VP5 and the N terminus of VP2 are not responsible for the different pathotype of serotype I and II infectious bursal disease virus.

Two serotypes have been identified in infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), a member of the family BIRNAVIRIDAE: A reverse genetics system was used for generation of chimeras in genome segment A of the two serotypes, in which the complete viral VP5 gene and 3' noncoding region (NCR), or parts thereof, were exchanged. The engineered viruses were characterized in vitro and in vivo in comparison to serotype I and II IBDV. Our results show that IBDV chimeras exhibit a different phenotype in cell culture compared to the wild-type viruses. In in vitro-cultivated bursal-derived cells, chimeric viruses infected B lymphocytes, as does serotype I IBDV. Surprisingly, serotype II virus was also able to infect in vitro-cultivated bursal cells, but these were neither B lymphocytes nor macrophages. After infection of susceptible chickens all chimeras replicated in the bursa of Fabricius (BF), and three chimeric viruses caused mild depletion of bursal cells. In contrast, after infection of chickens with a chimeric IBDV containing exchanged VP5 as well as 3'-NCR, no depletion was detectable. The serotype II strain did not replicate in the BF nor did it cause depletion of bursal cells. Thus, the origin of VP5 does not explain the different pathotype of IBDV serotype I and II.