Driving protective immune responses by targeting Mycobacterium bovis and Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus antigens to bovine dendritic cell subsets

这些研究将有助于为牛的两种重要疾病——牛结核病和口蹄疫病毒——设计新的疫苗。牛分枝杆菌是牛结核病的病原体，这是一种在英国牛群中发病率不断上升的疾病，造成重大经济损失和潜在的人类健康风险。目前，牛结核病的控制完全依赖于不具有100%敏感性或特异性的诊断测试。口蹄疫病毒（FMDV）具有广泛的宿主范围，包括所有偶蹄动物，并在家养反刍动物和猪中引起急性水疱病，导致衰弱、疼痛和丧失生产力。疫苗已被证明在控制包括细菌和病毒在内的各种传染病方面具有很高的价值。然而，有效的疫苗需要将感染因子的一部分传递给称为树突状细胞的特殊细胞。树突状细胞是人体中唯一能够对人体从未见过的病原体产生免疫反应的细胞。将感染因子的一部分靶向树突状细胞已被证明可以刺激强烈的免疫反应。不幸的是，情况比最初看起来要复杂得多，树突状细胞不止一种，每种细胞都能刺激不同类型的免疫反应。可能需要特定的免疫反应来控制不同的感染。急性病毒感染，例如口蹄疫，可能需要抗体反应来控制感染。相反，生长缓慢的细菌感染，例如肺结核，可能需要免疫T细胞来控制它们。在这个工作计划中，我们计划将口蹄疫病毒或牛结核细菌的成分靶向于特定的树突状细胞亚群，以确定是否可以刺激保护性免疫反应

These studies will help design new vaccines for two important diseases of cattle, bovine tuberculosis and Foot-and-Mouth disease virus. Mycobacterium bovis is the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis (TB), a disease increasing in incidence in UK cattle herds causing major economic losses and potential human health risks. At present control of bovine TB relies solely on the use of diagnostic tests which do not have 100% sensitivity or specificity. Foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) has a wide host range including all cloven-hoofed animals and causes an acute vesicular disease in domestic ruminants and pigs, which results in debilitation, pain and loss of productivity. Vaccines have been shown to be highly valuable in controlling a variety of infectious diseases, including bacteria and viruses. However, effective vaccines require portions of the infectious agent to be delivered to specialised cells, called dendritic cells. Dendritic cells are the only cells in the body capable of starting an immune response to an agent the body hasn't seen before. Targeting portions of the infectious agents to dendritic cells has been shown to stimulate a strong immune response. Unfortunately, the situation is more complicated than it first appears, there is more than one type of dendritic cell and each cell type can stimulate a different type of immune response. Specific immune responses may be required to control different infections. Acute viral infections, for example Foot-and-Mouth disease, may require an antibody response to control infection. In contrast, slow growing bacterial infections, for example tuberculosis may require immune T cells to control them. In this programme of work we plan to target components of Foot-and-Mouth disease virus or cattle tuberculosis bacteria to particular dendritic cell subsets to determine whther a protective immune response can be stimulated