Contribucions científiques del CReSA en la 3a reunió anual EPIZONE |
||
EPIZONE és la Xarxa d’Excel·lència per al Diagnòstic i Control de les Malalties Epizoòtiques. Investigadors del CReSA van participar en la seva tercera reunió anual amb cinc comunicacions, mostrant experiments recents en virus de la pesta porcina africana, febre aftosa, llengua blava i febre de la Vall del Rift. EPIZONE (finançat pel Sisè Programa Marc de la UE) té com a objectiu desenvolupar una xarxa de científics per a millorar la investigació en la preparació, prevenció, detecció i control de malalties epizoòtiques a Europa. Les contribucions científiques del CReSA es descriuen a continuació:
GM Keil JM Argilaguet, E Pérez-Martín, JM Escribano, F Rodríguez. Comunicació oral presentada pel Dr. Fernando Rodríguez. Resum
FX Abad, N Busquets, F Rodriguez, D Solanes, M Domingo, A Brun. Comunicació oral presentada pel Dr. Mariano Domingo. Resum Increasing our understanding of the disease is therefore highly desirable to increase our preparedness to fight this important disease. In this study, researchers of the CReSA tried to establish a reproducible infection model of RVF in a European sheep breed. Groups of 4 sheep of 6-8 weeks old were inoculated subcutaneously with 105 TCID50 of each isolate. Viremia titers were estimated by real time PCR and presence of viable virus confirmed by virus isolation. Different tissues were analysed for specific pathological changes by histopathology and/or immunhistochemistry. Leukocyte populations were also studied looking for immune correlates of infection. Shedding of RVFV and horizontal transmission to non-infected, in contact lambs was also investigated.
JM Argilaguet, E Pérez-Martín, M Pérez-Filgueira, JM Escribano, F Sobrino, B Borrego, F Rodríguez. Pòster. Resum We analysed the response induced in pigs immunized with pCMV-APCH I-BTT, a DNA plasmid encoding previously characterised FMDV B- and T-cell epitopes fused to APCH I, a single chain variable fragment (scFv) of an antibody that recognizes the Class II swine leukocyte antigen (SLA II). Immunization of pigs with this construct, even after one single shot, resulted in full protection for 50% of the animals, in which no signs of disease or viral replication were observed, and in partial protection for the rest of the pigs receiving the same plasmid. Protection seemed to correlate with the strong induction of specific T-cells against a conserved T-cell epitope prior to FMDV-challenge that secrete IFN in response to specific stimulation, as well as the rising of a fast neutralizing activity after viral challenge. The fact that this protection was achieved in the absence of anti-FMDV antibodies before viral challenge, drive the attention to the crucial role played by cellular responses in protection against FMD. On the other hand, the possibility of inducing protective cellular responses against highly conserved T-cell epitopes open the possibility of generating “universal” vaccines against a highly variable virus such as FMDV, one of the main problems currently struggling the development of effective FMDV vaccines.
SG Iz, SID Gurhan, M Doskaya, B Borrego, F Rodriguez. Pòster. Resum Conventional inactivated whole virus FMD vaccine that has been used confers high protection rates but that protection lasts short time. Conventional vaccines has some additional problems: on one hand it doesn’t allow serological distinction between infected and vaccinated animals and on the other hand there are serious risks of virus release and/or insufficient inactivation of the virus from the FMD Reference Laboratory and/or vaccine production plants as recently reported for one of the most recent FMD outbreaks in United Kingdom. Therefore, development of new generation of efficient and safer vaccines is a necessity to overcome all the problems above described. The aim of the study is to construct DNA vaccine plasmids co expressing FMDV antigens and anti-apoptotic proteins. FMDV antigens used in this study are major B and T-cell FMDV epitopes of FMDV C and FMDV O1K isolate. Borrego et al., have shown that DNA vaccines based on B and T epitopes of FMDV C isolate can protect mice even in the absence of specific antibodies at the time of challenge. Anti-apoptotic proteins used in this study were Bcl-xL of the host animal and the 3CD gene region of FMDV. While the addition of either Bcl-xL or the FMDV-3CD gene should increase the half-life of the antigen presenting cells co-expressing the B and T FMDV epitopes thus enhancing the specific immune responses induced, the induction of a specific response against 3CD might also contribute to protect the host against the FMDV chalenge. Preliminary studies about the vaccine generation and their expression upon transient in vitro transfection will be presented.
S Okay, V Aragon, R Rosell, J Pujols, G Özcengiz, F Rodriguez. Pòster Resum DNA vaccination is one of the most promising strategies to develop recombinant vaccines either alone, or in protocols of prime-boost. However, one of the main criticisms comes from its low immunogenicity in large animal species and/or against some specific antigens. In this work, we explores a new strategy based on fusing antigens to the Bordetella bronchiseptica fitohemaglutinin (fHA), an adhesion molecule capable to bind to Antigen Presenting Cells (APCs), including from mucosa, from many different animal origins. Upon DNA vaccination in vivo, fused antigens should be carried out to the sites where fHA have their antigen receptors: mainly in macrophages, dendritic cells and epithelial cells. Once demonstrated the capability of fHA-GFP fusion proteins to bind to porcine epithelial cells in vitro, we decided to compare the immune responses induce by a DNA vaccine (pCMV-PQ) encoding two African swine fever virus (ASFV) genes expressed in tandem (PQ), with two DNA constructs encoding same genes as fusions with two different domains from the fHA: pCMV-fHAsPQ and pCMV-fHAlPQ. Preliminary results obtained using non-syngeneic mice (NIH-swiss mice) clearly demonstrated the adjuvant efficacy of fHA. The fusion of either one of the fHA domains to PQ enhanced both the antibody and the cellular responses induced in mice. We are currently extending these studies, on one hand, to pigs, natural host of ASFV and on the other hand to one of the most threatening virus affecting ruminants: Bluetongue virus (BTV). The selection of these two viruses obey to several reasons: i) both are diseases of obligatory declaration and between the most threatening viruses for animal health, as listed by the OIE and ii) finding and adjuvant capable to work not only in mice but also in two animal species such porcine and ovine and against diseases and provoked by viruses as different as ASFV (double stranded DNA virus) and BTV (negative stranded RNA virus) would mean the definitive consolidation of DNA vaccines as an alternative strategy to control animal diseases.
I García, A Allepuz, MA González, J Casal, S Napp, A Carbonero, C Borge, A Arenas Póster. After the epidemic of BTV-4 in 2004, which affected Andalusia (Southern Spain), a new serotype (BTV-1) appeared in this region in 2007. During the following months, the virus spread quickly and 7,916 outbreaks were detected in Spain in 2007. Still, most of the outbreaks (56%) were detected in Andalusia. In this communication we present the results of the epidemiological and spatial study of the outbreaks that affected Andalusia during 2007. Data on BT outbreaks in domestic animals in Andalusia were obtained from the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Information relative to epidemiological data (general characteristics of the farms, clinical sings, mortality and morbidity), were collected from the affected farms through personal interview with farmers. A total of 4,436 outbreaks of BTV-1 were confirmed during that year: 3,162 in sheep flocks, 113 in goat flocks, 7 in cattle herds and 1,154 in mixed farms (sheep, goat and/or cattle in the same farm). The temporal distribution of the outbreaks presented a clear peak of infection between October and November. The prevalence of positive farms to the RT-PCR analysis was 17.7%, and the within farm prevalence was 16.8%. The mortality rate in the affected farms was 8.6%. The most common clinical signs were: fever, depression, lethargy, facial edema, and salivation (observed in more than 70% of the infected farms). Lesions in oral mucosa, lameness and dyspnea were also observed. The infected farms were located mainly in the western Andalusia, which coincided with the areas with both highest ruminant census and highest captures of C.imicola. Spatial models are being built in order to analyze the spatial distribution of the disease and more detailed results will be presented during the meeting. |
||
|