Award details

Immune function in healthy and African swine fever virus infected pigs

Reference	BBS/E/I/00001102
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Haru - Hisa Takamatsu
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Dr Geraldine Taylor
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	19,857
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/07/2003
End date	30/06/2006
Duration	36 months

Abstract

The current alarming increase in the frequency and severity of outbreaks of African swine fever virus in Africa, and continued incidence of sporadic cases throughout Western Europe, coupled with a lack of effective vaccine, mans that ASFV remains a major threat to the UK pig industry. This project aims to provide the knowledge of the porcine immune system necessary for the rational design of effective vaccines against ASFV. The work will also be applicable to the design of vaccines against other important pathogens representing threats to the British pig industry. This work extends the previous project (SE1506) which characterised sub-populations of porcine lymphocytes, and demonstrated that the protective cellular immune response to ASFV was dependent on CD8 positive T-cells. This proposal continues our search for proteins encoded by the virus that are recognised by these T-cells. We will also further define the sub populations of porcine lymphocytes that respond to ASFV during infection. Our work under the previous project has shown that the circulation of pigs contains unexpectedly high levels of natural killer (NK)-like cells. These cells are important for the initiation of innate and acquired immune responses to infection. Since ASF is an acute disease where innate responses to the virus are likely to play a key role in determining the outcome of infection, it is important for us to know how these cells respond during the infection of pigs with ASFV. This work will advance our understanding of mechanisms of cellular immunity in the pig, particularly in relation to viral infection. An understanding of these parameters of both innate (NK) and acquired (T-cell) immunity will be important during the design of vaccines against ASFV.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Animal Sciences (AS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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