Evaluation of Immunogenicity of Clostridium perfringens Type B Toxoid and Inactivated FMD (O) Virus with Adjuvant (ISA70-MF59).

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) and enterotoxemia are important diseases of hoofed animals. Vaccination against livestock pathogens, especially these two diseases, plays a key role in the prevention and control of these diseases. The use of combined vaccines with the aim of creating a better immune response and producing cheaper vaccines is a great contribution to Vaccine industry. This research aimed to compare the immunogenicity of FMD (O) and Clostridium perfringens type B toxoid along with adjuvant (MF59) and Montanide (ISA70) to create the best immunogenicity. To investigate the immune responses of vaccines, it was injected into an animal model, and the antibody titer was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test and VN antibody titer. The results showed that the formulation with MF59 adjuvant brought more stable immunogenicity against FMD and Clostridium perfringens type B, and the length of the immunogenicity period also increased significantly. Therefore, the combined vaccine (Clostridium perfringens + FMD) could play a major role invaccine industry as an alternative vaccine against Clostridium perfringens and FMD in livestock.

Immunity Evaluation of an Experimental Designed Nanoliposomal Vaccine Containing FMDV Immunodominant Peptides.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease affecting cloven-hoofed animals. The particular virus causing FMD disease is called FMD virus and is a member of the Aphthovirus genus in the Picornaviridae family. The FMD virus has an 8500 nt long single strain positive RNA genome with one open reading frame (ORF) trapped in an icosahedral capsid protein. This virus genome doesn't have proofreading property which leads to high mutagenesis. It has seven serotypes, including O, A, ASIA, SAT1, SAT2, and C serotypes, as well as many subtypes. Iran is an endemic region for foot-and-mouth disease. Vaccination of susceptible animals with an inactivated whole-virus vaccine is the only way to control the epidemic in many developing countries. Today, conventionally attenuated and killed virus vaccines are being used worldwide. In Iran, animals have been vaccinated every 105 days with an inactivated FMD vaccine. Although commercially available FMD vaccines are effective, they provide short-term immunity requiring regular boosters. A new FMD vaccine is needed to improve immunization, safety, and long-term immune responses. A synthetic peptide vaccine is one of the safe and important vaccines. Peptide vaccine has low immunogenicity, requiring strong adjuvants. Nanoliposomes can be used as new adjuvants to improve immune response. In the current study, nanoliposomal carriers were selected using Dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC), dimyristoyl phosphoglycerol (DMPG), and Cholesterol (Chol) as an adjuvant containing two immunodominant synthetic FMDV peptides. The liposomal formulations were characterized by various physicochemical properties. The size, zeta potential, and encapsulation efficiency were optimized, and the obtained nanoliposome was suitable as a vaccine. The efficacy of vaccines has been evaluated in guinea pigs as animal models. Indirect ELISA was used to detect FMDV-specific IgG. The obtained results indicated that although antibody titer was observed, the amount was lower compared to the groups that received inactivated virus-containing liposomes. In addition, the results showed that liposome was an appropriate adjuvant, compared to other adjuvants, such as Alum and Freund, and can act as a depot and induce an immune response.

A study of Newcastle disease virus obtained from exotic caged birds in Tehran between 2009 and 2010.

The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of the Newcastle disease virus (NDV) infection and its virulence in exotic cage birds over a limited area and time period. A set of 335 samples was collected from 24 different species of exotic unvaccinated cage birds kept in the zoological gardens and bird markets of the Tehran province of Iran during 1.5 years. Except for three pigeons, all of the sampled birds were healthy with no clinical signs of Newcastle disease. NDV was detected in three sick pigeons by haemagglutination assay (HA), haemagglutination inhibition (HI) and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests while two of them were identified as virulent types by RT-PCR. Although the remaining samples were negative by Newcastle-disease-specific HA and HI tests, 35 of them (10%) were identified as positive and 25 (72%) were determined as the velogenic type by RT-PCR test. Five PCR products were sequenced and all were confirmed as NDV but sequences were different from each other and from other sequences from Iran. In total, 14 species (58%) were infected and 10 species were uninfected with the velogenic type without showing any signs. Pigeons are very sensitive to NDV infection and play an important role in its epidemiology. In this study, the PCR test was found to be a more sensitive and powerful method than the HA and HI tests for detection of NDV reservoirs and carrier status in exotic birds. Also, the frequency of infection with the virulent type showed that the exotic birds should probably be considered one of the main causes of recurrent annual epidemics of Newcastle disease in endemic regions.

Anti-inflammatory and anticoagulant effects of transgenic expression of human thrombomodulin in mice.

Thrombomodulin (TBM) is an important vascular anticoagulant that has species specific effects. When expressed as a transgene in pigs, human (h)TBM might abrogate thrombotic manifestations of acute vascular rejection (AVR) that occur when GalT-KO and/or complement regulator transgenic pig organs are transplanted to primates. hTBM transgenic mice were generated and characterized to determine whether this approach might show benefit without the development of deleterious hemorrhagic phenotypes. hTBM mice are viable and are not subject to spontaneous hemorrhage, although they have a prolonged bleeding time. They are resistant to intravenous collagen-induced pulmonary thromboembolism, stasis-induced venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Cardiac grafts from hTBM mice to rats treated with cyclosporine in a model of AVR have prolonged survival compared to controls. hTBM reduced the inflammatory reaction in the vein wall in the stasis-induced thrombosis and mouse-to-rat xenograft models and reduced HMGB1 levels in LPS-treated mice. These results indicate that transgenic expression of hTBM has anticoagulant and antiinflammatory effects that are graft-protective in murine models.

Use of cytokines in cancer vaccines/immunotherapy: recent developments improve survival rates for patients with metastatic malignancy.

Historically, patients with disseminated cancer have had poor prognoses and chemotherapy has been of little benefit. However, several different avenues of clinical research are providing reasons for hope. The advent of cytokine immunotherapy, particularly in combination with chemotherapy (biochemotherapy) has seen significantly improved outcomes for metastatic disease. Early biochemotherapy trials often revealed more than 20% complete responses. Unfortunately, Phase III trials have not confirmed earlier expectations for reasons that are not clear, but may reflect the inclusion of patients with refractory brain or other metastases in later trials. More recently, cancer vaccine therapies have provided significantly improved patient survival rates. It is not uncommon for 5-year survival rates of post-surgical patients recovering from metastatic malignancy who receive cancer vaccine therapy to reach more than 50%. Cytokines have become an integral part of cancer therapy and are also under trial together with cancer vaccines as post-surgical adjuvant therapies providing significant gains in long term survival rates. New insights from several different areas of research into the properties of tumour cells and their significance for immunosurveillance point to the importance of the tumour cells themselves as antigen presenting cells. Recent developments with genetically deficient animals and cancer cells have provided greater understanding at the molecular level of the importance of a functioning antigen presenting system operating inside tumour cells. This new knowledge offers support for further enhancing patient survival by combining previous therapies such as use of cytokines in biochemotherapy together with immunization using cytokine activated whole cell cancer vaccines in the future.

rDNA-ITS2 based species-diagnostic polymerase chain reaction assay for identification of sibling species of Anopheles fluviatilis in Iran.

A species-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay using primers already designed, based on differences in the nucleotides of the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2), was used to identify the species composition of the Anopheles fluviatilis complex in Iran. All the amplified DNA samples obtained from specimens collected from different areas using different collection methods yielded to a fragment of 450 bp size, a PCR product corresponding to the species denoted as Y. Some 21 ITS2 region of Iranian specimens were sequenced and compared with the already published sequence data of species Y from India. The sequence data of the Iranian specimens were 100% identical to that of the Indian specimens, and hence confirmed the PCR assay results. Species Y is presumably species T in India, which has no role in the transmission of malaria, whereas mosquitos of An. fluviatilis are known as a secondary vector in Iran. This conflict will remain to be solved by further biological and molecular studies.