Abstract
BackgroundAfter the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Korea, a vaccination policy has been applied to control the disease. In addition, several non-specific immune stimulators have been used without any scientific evidence that they would enhance the immune response after FMD vaccination and/or protect against FMD. Based on the current situation, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the non-specific immune stimulator germanium biotite on FMD vaccination and immune responses in cattle. To achieve our goal, immune responses to FMD vaccination, such as levels of IgG and IgA, antibody duration, and virus-neutralizing titers were investigated after germanium biotite feeding. The PBMC typing and proliferative response after stimulation with mitogens, the cytokines expression level of PBMC, and the lysozyme activity in the serum were measured to evaluate the immune enhancing effects of germanium biotite following its administration.ResultsFollowing the first vaccination, high level of IgG (at 4 weeks) and IgA (at 2 and 31 weeks) titers in serum and saliva were observed in the germanium biotite-feeding group (p < 0.05). The germanium biotite group also showed high and longstanding inhibition percentage value in ELISA assay at 31 weeks (p < 0.05). Generally, higher virus-neutralizing antibody titers were observed in the feeding group at 20 and 31 weeks after vaccination. Following the feeding germanium biotite, the germanium biotite group showed increased subpopulation of CD4+ lymphocytes and MHC I+II+ cells in PBMCs at 23 week, responding to stimulation of ConA. The levels of IFN-γ (at 3 and 8 weeks), IL-1α (at 3, 11, and 23 weeks), IL-1β (at 3, 8, and 11 weeks), and IL-4 (at 8 and 11 weeks) gene expression were also significantly increased in the feeding group (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05). Feeding with germanium biotite increased the lymphocytes’ proliferative response to the stimulation of ConA and LPS at 23 weeks and lysozyme activity at 9 weeks after feeding.ConclusionsThese results suggest that germanium biotite feeding could increase the protection against FMD virus infection via the induction of higher humoral and cellular immune responses in cattle.
Highlights
After the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Korea, a vaccination policy has been applied to control the disease
Antibody responses to FDMV In the analysis of the duration of antibody levels and the secretion of IgA after FMD vaccination, the inhibition percentage (PI) values started to increase with the first vaccination, and the values were significantly increased by a booster vaccination at 4 weeks, with the highest Inhibition percentage (PI) values at 10 weeks, and this continued steadily up to 28 weeks, regardless of whether the germanium biotite was administered
FMD virus (FMDV)-specific IgA in the saliva of the germanium biotite group was generally higher than in the control group, there were no significant differences between the groups at some points during this experiment (Figure 1B)
Summary
After the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Korea, a vaccination policy has been applied to control the disease. One major problem in controlling FMD is antigenic variation, as infection or vaccination with one FMDV serotype does not protect against other serotypes, and it may even fail to protect fully against other subtypes within the same serotype [4,5,6]. This problem has been raised by the experimental and field data of previous researchers on vaccination, including both single and multivalent vaccines [3,7,8]
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