Development of swine immune reagents for analysis of immune correlates for vaccines, infection, and in biomedical research

Abstract

Abstract The goal of the USDA-NIFA Swine Immune Toolkit Initiative has been to generate priority immune reagents based on inputs from veterinary immunology researchers worldwide, and pipeline them for marketing. So far in our efforts we express soluble proteins in yeast system and then produce panels of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) using collaborations with commercial partners for protein expression and mAb production. So far we generated several new panels of mAbs reactive to porcine IL-6, IL-13, IFN-γ, IL-17A, IL-28B, CXCL10, and BAFF and screened their reactivity in multiple immune assays. Reactivity tests of labeled anti-IL-6 and anti-IL-13 mAbs for intracellular staining of porcine immune cells using flow cytometry assay are in progress. Our results have confirmed the reactivity of porcine IL-17A, IFN-γ and CXCL10 mAbs. A sensitive sandwich ELISA is now available for IL-17A, IL-13 and CXCL10; other targets are being screened for best mAb pairs for ELISA. Planning has been initiated for the generation of IL-5 and IL-21 mAbs; and use of SLA-I & -II tetramers to identify swine CD4 and CD8 T cells specific for influenza virus peptides. For each target, our goal is to provide the veterinary community with new commercial reagents and standardized assay techniques for their research efforts. Tools and reagents generated by this project will undoubtedly advance our understanding of swine immune responses to disease, vaccine and biomedical research efforts. Supported by USDA-NIFA AFRI grant # 2019-67015-29815