"Blood sweating" of calves: vaccine brings death
Giessen veterinarians achieve breakthrough in the exploration of the "blood sweating" of suckling calves - Vaccine responsible - Publication in Veterinary Research
Veterinarians were puzzled, farmers were extremely worried about their calves. came the first time four years ago in Germany and some other European countries, a deadly disease in suckling calves, which is characterized by insatiable bleeding. The bleeding arise as a result of the almost complete loss of blood and bone marrow cells, which are also affected necessary for clotting platelets. In professional circles, the disease as Bovine Neonatal pancytopenia (BNP) is referred to. In researching the causes Giessen veterinarians have now achieved a scientific breakthrough. You make a vaccine for the insatiable bleeding responsibility that ultimately let die the animals agonizing. Giessen virologist in the Department 10 - Veterinary Medicine, Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU) to describe the mechanisms of destruction of the blood-forming cells in calves succeeded.
In Europe, 4.000 has become aware of BNP cases and has led to significant disturbances in cattle farming. Neither pathogens nor toxins were identified as the cause of the disease, however, a special significance of the colostrum ("beast milk") - the first milk a newborn calf drinks - for the occurrence of BNP BNP also occurred more in such cattle herds in which a known vaccine against bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) was used (PregSure®, Pfizer).
In order to clarify the causes of BNP, the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE) launched a research network last year under the coordination of Prof. Klaus Doll (head of the JLU ruminant clinic), at which scientists from four veterinary educational institutions in Germany participate. Recently, JLU veterinarians have shown that in the colostrum of cows that have BNP in their calves, antibodies that react with calf white blood cells have been found.
A research team headed by Prof. Till Rümenapf from the Institute of Virology at JLU has now succeeded in identifying MHC-I as the target antigen against which the maternal BNP-eliciting antibodies are directed.
MHC-I is present on all body cells and plays a central role in the immune system. It has been shown that in some dams antibodies to those variants of MHC-I are formed, which are also included in the BVD vaccine, presumably as an impurity by the cells used in the production process. If the calf happens to have the same MHC-I molecule, the maternal antibodies bind to it and destroy the blood-forming cells. This indicates the potential danger to all vaccines that are produced using cells of the same species for which the vaccine is intended. However, other vaccines against BVD with other compounds did not cause these problems, emphasize the Giessen veterinarians.
The research results of Fabian Deutskens and colleagues have now been published in Veterinary Research and are freely accessible there (open access).
Title of the publication
Fabian Deutskens, Benjamin Lamp, Christiane M Riedel, Eveline Wentz, Günter Lochnit, Klaus Doll, Heinz-Jürgen Thiel, Till Rümenapf Vaccine-induced antibodies linked to Bovine Neonatal Pancytopenia (BNP) recognize cattle Major Histocompatibility Complex class I (MHC I) Veterinary Research 2011, 42: 97 doi: 10.1186 / 1297-9716-42-97
Source: Giessen [Justus Liebig University]
