 Brucella spp. Lumazine Synthase as a novel immunomodulator to produce egg yolk antibodies

BELLIDO D; CHACANA PABLO; MARINA MOZGOVOJ; DIEGO DANIEL GONZALEZ; FERNANDO GOLDBAUM; ANDRES WIGDOROVITZ; DUS SANTOS MARIA JOSE

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Congreso; 5TH VACCINE AND ISV ANNUAL GLOBAL CONGRESS; 2011

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IgY technology has several advantages over conventional mammalian antibody production: chicken housing is inexpensive, egg collection is noninvasive and IgY isolation is relatively fast and simple. For this reason, IgY technology has been evaluated for therapeutic application by oral administration to prevent or control some enteropathogen infections. However, extensive applications of IgY technology demands the optimization of the IgY production. Efficiency of the immunization of hens is a key issue that must be addressed to maximize the amount of specific IgY that can be obtained from the egg yolk. In this context, new immunization strategies should be explored, not only to increase the production of antibodies but also to reduce undesirable and painful side effects in the birds due to the inoculation . With this purpose we evaluated the use of the protein Lumazine synthase from Brucella spp. (BLS) as a novel immunomodulator in laying hens. BLS is a highly immunogenic decameric protein that has been previously described as a carrier of peptides or proteins to increase their immunogenicity in different animal species, but its activity has never been evaluated in chickens. We have previously described the fusion of BLS to the inner domain of the VP8 protein (BLSVP8d) from Bovine Rotavirus (BRV) strain C486. This fusion protein was able to elicit a high antibody response in mice which resulted in fully protection of pups against challenge with virulent C486 BRV(cita). In this work, the feasibilty of BLS to improve the antibody response of laying hens against bovine rotavirus (BRV) VP8d protein was assessed