Immunological responses and evaluation of the protection in dairy cows vaccinated with staphylococcal surface proteins.

Bovine mastitis is a significant cause of economic losses in the dairy industry. Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most common contagious mastitis pathogens, whereas Staphylococcus chromogenes increasingly became a significant cause of subclinical mastitis in dairy cows. Current mastitis control measures are not effective on all mastitis pathogens. There is no effective vaccine to control Staphylococcal mastitis in dairy cows. The objective of this study was to evaluate the immune responses and protection in dairy cows vaccinated with S. aureus surface proteins (SASP) or S. chromogenes surface proteins (SCSP). We divided eighteen Holstein dairy cows randomly into three groups of 6 animals each. We vaccinated group 1 and 2 animals with SASP and SCSP with Emulsigen-D adjuvant, respectively. We injected control (group 3) animals with PBS (pH 7.2) in Emulsigen®-D. We vaccinated animals three times at 28 and 14 days before drying off, and at dry off. Two weeks after the third vaccination, we challenged each animal by dipping all teats in S. aureus culture suspension once daily for 14 consecutive days. We evaluated milk or mammary secretion and serum antibody titers during vaccination and challenge periods. We evaluated milk samples for the number of bacteria shedding and somatic cell counts (SCC). Out of six cows vaccinated with SASP, one cow was removed from the study due to injury, two were infected clinically, another two were infected subclinically, and the remaining cow was not infected. No SCSP vaccinated cows developed clinical or subclinical mastitis. Out of six control cows, two developed clinical mastitis whereas four were infected subclinically. The SCSP vaccine cross-protected against S. aureus mastitis and reduced number of S. aureus shedding in milk. We concluded that the SCSP is a promising vaccine to control Staphylococcal mastitis in dairy cows.

Mucocutaneous bullous amyloidosis with an unusual mixed protein composition of amyloid deposits.

We describe a case of fatal systemic amyloidosis presenting with mucocutaneous bullous lesions in a patient with IgA kappa monoclonal gammopathy. The amyloid plaques were composed of an unusual mixture of immunoglobulin kappa light chain and amyloid A proteins. Whereas oesophageal and oropharyngeal blisters are known to occur in several types of bullous dermatoses, to our knowledge this is the first report of oesophagopharyngeal blisters complicating bullous amyloidosis.