Status of the development of a vaccine against Mycoplasma bovis.

Mycoplasma bovis is an important pathogen of cattle and, despite numerous efforts an effective vaccine for control of the disease it causes remains elusive. Although we now know more about the biology of this pathogen, information is lacking about appropriate protective antigens, the type of immune response that confers protection and adjuvants selection. The use of conserved recombinant proteins, selected using in silico approaches, as components of a vaccine may be a better choice over bacterin-based vaccines due to the limited protection afforded by them and adverse reactions caused by them. More studies are needed on the characterization of host-pathogen interactions and to elucidate M. bovis products modulating these interactions. These products could be the basis for development of vaccines to control M. bovis infections in dairy farms and feedlots.

Analysis of immune responses to recombinant proteins from strains of Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides, the causative agent of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia.

Current contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) vaccines are based on live-attenuated strains of Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides (Mmm). These vaccines have shortcomings in terms of efficacy, duration of immunity and in some cases show severe side effects at the inoculation site; hence the need to develop new vaccines to combat the disease. Reverse vaccinology approaches were used and identified 66 candidate Mycoplasma proteins using available Mmm genome data. These proteins were ranked by their ability to be recognized by serum from CBPP-positive cattle and thereafter used to inoculate naïve cattle. We report here the inoculation of cattle with recombinant proteins and the subsequent humoral and T-cell-mediated immune responses to these proteins and conclude that a subset of these proteins are candidate molecules for recombinant protein-based subunit vaccines for CBPP control.