Objective
Research has been carried out into the development of a recombinant vaccine against the bacterial kidney disease (BKD) of salmonids.
The challenge conditions with Renibacterium salmmoninarum, the BKD causal agent, have been optimized and mortalities in the 60 to 80% range are regularly obtained. This tools allows study of the level of protection provided by the immunization of the rainbow trout. Passive immunizations were done by injecting artificially challenge fish with serum collected from survivors from BKD outbreaks or experimental challenges. The passive immunization did not confer full resistance to the disease, but an attenuation of the virulence and a delay in the mortality could be observed. BKD is a slowly progressing disease, and there is a several week interval between the administration of the bacterial and the death of the fish. In these conditions the persistence of serum is probably too short to provide good protection. The search for protective antigens has focused on extracellular virulence factors. Continuous fermentation has been implemented to provide a regular supply of antigenic material. The fermentation conditions of Renibacterium have been modified to stimulate the expression of virulence factors. 3 proteins have been selected for further study and cloning. The actual expression of these proteins in vivo was confirmed during implantation studies. The Renibacterium cells were placed in dialysis tubing introduced in the peritoneal cavity of fish. After several days, the protein content of the tubing was analysed and confirmed the secretion of the selected antigens.
These antigens were partially purified from culture broth and their immunogenicity is currently under evaluation. In parallel, a complete genomic library of Renibacterium salmoninarum was constructed. The gene encoding for these antigens will be expressed in bacteria for subsequent vaccine development.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- social sciencessociologydemographymortality
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunologyimmunisation
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinenephrologykidney diseases
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybioprocessing technologiesfermentation
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4102 Seraing
Belgium