Development of an in vitro system that mimics B and T helper cell responses in porcine lymph nodes

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Pigs are kept in large numbers on farms in Europe and worldwide. To keep these animals healthy and to maintain a high standard of animal welfare, swine are frequently vaccinated. However, some of these vaccines have only limited efficacy and for some devastating pig diseases, like African swine fever, no vaccines exist at all.Hence, the testing and development of new vaccines is an area of active research by public research institutions and privately owned companies world-wide. Testing of vaccines from early stages of vaccine development onwards is mainly performed in living pigs. In this project we aim to develop a culture system for immune cells in the laboratory. Such a culture is called 'in vitro'. Our in vitro culture system mimics the immune response occurring in specialised organs of the immune system, called lymph nodes. Within these lymph nodes various immune cell types interact with each other. One of these cell types, called B cells, produces antibodies which often confer protection after vaccination. In pilot experiments, we have already established an in vitro system that shows several features of the immune reaction, like the activation of B cells and the production of antibodies. In the first phase of this project, we aim to optimise this system. Different variations will be introduced into the existing in vitro system to test whether they improve the function of the immune cells within them. In the final stage of the project, we will test if our optimised in vitro system is capable of mimicking central features of the B cell response, including antibody production, occurring in lymph nodes of living pigs. If our in vitro system proves to be capable of mimicking B cell and antibody responses occurring in living pigs, it will be used in the future to reduce the number of pigs in used in the development of new vaccine or improvement of current vaccines. This will apply to the early phase of vaccine development, where basic research is performed to identify promising vaccine candidates. Although the immune cells in our in vitro system still need to be isolated initially from a living pig, cells from a single pig can be used in numerous projects for the testing of different vaccine candidates. We will communicate the findings of our project to colleagues working in other research institutions and in vaccine-producing companies. For this we will participate in international scientific meetings, speak to colleagues via established collaboration networks, offer training courses and spread our findings via social media platforms. Results will also be published in scientific journals. In this way we ensure that our in vitro system will be quickly taken up by others, ensuring it unfolds the maximal opportunity to reduce the number pigs required in the early phase of the development of new vaccines.