A Comprehensive Review of Tick-Born Blood Protozoan Disease in Cattle: Babesiosis and Vaccination

Abstract

Babesiosis is a tick-borne blood protozoan cattle disease caused by the genus Babesia worldwide and in tropical and subtropical regions. It is mainly caused by Babesia bovis and Babesia bigemina in cattle. When merozoites enter the erythrocyte, the surface coat of B. bigemina produces many merozoite surface antigens. This study is a comprehensive review of the "Tick-Borne Blood Protozoan Cattle Disease: Babesiosis and Vaccination" survey. There is a need to develop effective vaccines to control bovine babesiosis (BB) under field conditions because of the development of drug resistance against it. B. bigemina live-attenuated vaccine is available in the form of infected red blood cells (RBCs) in Australia and Israel, which has the danger of disseminating exotic DNA to other countries. A recombinant protein-based vaccine is a good choice to be developed, but very few immunogens have been explored yet to launch vaccination against B. bigemina. It is concluded from this study that secretory proteins were characterized, and the 65 kDa protein was found to be immunogenic. Major surface protein (gp45) was found to be antigenic and immunogenic when sera samples of infected and vaccinated calves were screened. The multiepitope-based protein rec-gpME was expressed, and the calves were vaccinated. The vaccinated calves had higher humoral and CTL responses. This rec-gpME could be a potential vaccine candidate against the B. bigemina infection. This rec-gpME would be tested on cattle under field conditions in Pakistan in the future.