Effect of breed of cattle on innate resistance to infection with Babesia bovis, B bigemina and Anaplasma marginale

Detection of Babesia bigemina in cattle of different genetic groups and in Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus tick

Babesia bigemina infections were investigated in four genetic groups of beef cattle and in Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus engorged female ticks. Blood samples and engorged female ticks were collected from 15 cows and 15 calves from each of the following genetic groups: Nelore, Angus x Nelore, Canchim x Nelore, and Simmental x Nelore. Microscopic examination of blood smears and tick hemolymph revealed that merozoites of B. bigemina (6/60) as well as kinetes of Babesia spp. (9/549) were only detected in samples (blood and ticks, respectively) originated from calves. PCR-based methods using primers for specific detection of B. bigemina revealed 100% infection in both calves and cows, regardless the genetic group. Tick infection was detected by nested-PCR amplifications showing that the frequency of B. bigemina was higher (P<0.01) in female ticks collected from calves (134/549) than in those collected from cows (52/553). The frequency of B. bigemina was similar in ticks collected from animals, either cows or calves, of the four genetic groups (P>0.05).

Productivity and health effects of anaplasmosis and babesiosis on Bos indicus cattle and their crosses, and the effects of differing intensity of tick control in Australia

Tick fever is an important disease of cattle where Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus acts as a vector for the three causal organisms Babesia bovis, Babesia bigemina and Anaplasma marginale. Bos indicus cattle and their crosses are more resistant to the clinical effects of infection with B. bovis and B. bigemina than are Bos taurus cattle. Resistance is not complete, however, and herds of B. indicus-cross cattle are still at risk of babesiosis in environments where exposure to B. bovis is light in most years but occasionally high. The susceptibility of B. indicus cattle and their crosses to infection with A. marginale is similar to that of B. taurus cattle. In herds of B. indicus cattle and their crosses the infection rate of Babesia spp. and A. marginale is lowered because fewer ticks are likely to attach per day due to reduced numbers of ticks in the field (long-term effect on population, arising from high host resistance) and because a smaller proportion of ticks that do develop to feed on infected cattle will in turn be infected (due to lower parasitaemia). As a consequence, herds of B. indicus cattle are less likely than herds of B. taurus cattle to have high levels of population immunity to babesiosis or anaplasmosis. The effects of acaricide application on the probability of clinical disease due to anaplasmosis and babesiosis are unpredictable and dependent on the prevalence of infection in ticks and in cattle at the time of application. Attempting to manipulate population immunity through the toleration of specific threshold numbers of ticks with the aim of controlling tick fever is not reliable and the justification for acaricide application should be for the control of ticks rather than for tick fever. Vaccination of B. indicus cattle and their crosses is advisable in all areas where ticks exist, although vaccination against B. bigemina is probably not essential in pure B. indicus animals.

Importance of ticks and their chemical and immunological control in livestock

The medical and economic importance of ticks has long been recognized due to their ability to transmit diseases to humans and animals. Ticks cause great economic losses to livestock, and adversely affect livestock hosts in several ways. Loss of blood is a direct effect of ticks acting as potential vector for haemo-protozoa and helminth parasites. Blood sucking by large numbers of ticks causes reduction in live weight and anemia among domestic animals, while their bites also reduce the quality of hides. However, major losses caused by ticks are due to their ability to transmit protozoan, rickettsial and viral diseases of livestock, which are of great economic importance world-wide. There are quite a few methods for controlling ticks, but every method has certain shortcomings. The present review is focused on ticks importance and their control.

Babesiosis of cattle

Tick fever or cattle fever (babesiosis) is economically the most important arthropod-borne disease of cattle worldwide with vast areas of Australia, Africa, South and Central America and the United States continuously under threat. Tick fever was the first disease for which transmission by an arthropod to a mammal was implicated at the turn of the twentieth century and is the first disease to be eradicated from a continent (North America). This review describes the biology of Babesia spp. in the host and the tick, the scale of the problem to the cattle industry, the various components of control programmes, epidemiology, pathogenesis, immunity, vaccination and future research. The emphasis is on Babesia bovis and Babesia bigemina.

Tick control: Thoughts on a research agenda

Tick control is critical to the control of tick borne disease, while the direct impact of ticks on livestock productivity is also well known. For livestock, tick control today rests overwhelmingly on the twin approaches of genetics and chemical acaricides, although the disadvantages and limitations of both are recognized. The achievement of the full potential of vaccination, the application of biocontrol agents and the coordinated management of the existing technologies all pose challenging research problems. Progress in many areas has been steady over the last decade, while the acquisition of molecular information has now reached a revolutionary stage. This is likely to have immediate impact on the identification of potential antigens for improved vaccines and novel targets for acaricide action. In many circumstances, the rate limiting step in making scientific progress will remain unchanged, namely the resource constraint on evaluating these appropriately in large animals. For other approaches, such as the use of biocontrol agents, the limitation is likely to be less in the identification of suitable agents than in their delivery in an efficient and cost effective way. Our scientific understanding of the molecular basis for the tick vector-tick borne disease interaction is in its infancy but the area is both challenging and, in the long term, likely to be of great practical importance. What is arguably the most difficult problem of all remains: the translation of laboratory research into the extremely diverse parasite control requirements of farming systems in a way that is practically useful.

Potential for recombinant Babesia bovis antigens to protect against a highly virulent isolate

Two antigens from Babesia bovis,12D3 and 11C5, were expressed and purified as recombinant proteins in Escherichia coli and used to vaccinate groups of six Babesia-susceptible cattle. These were subsequently challenged with a highly virulent strain of B. bovis. All cattle showed symptoms of disease and most required treatment. Cattle vaccination groups receiving either 12D3 or 11C5 or a combination of both, reduced parasitaemia by approximately fourfold and a number of individual animals appeared to control the parasite infection. Control of parasites correlated with high monocyte numbers late in infection. The results thus confirm the potential usefulness of both antigens but also demonstrate the limitations of current formulations.

Vaccination of older Bos taurus bulls against bovine babesiosis

Two separate groups of Bos taurus bulls, one of 106 and the second of 27 animals, imported to Israel from areas free of Babesia bovis and Babesia bigemina, were vaccinated against babesiosis with a bivalent live attenuated vaccine. In light of the fact that routine vaccination is recommended at the weaning age, these bulls--of highly susceptible breeds--were kept under close surveillance to prevent losses that might be caused by severe clinical reactions to their vaccination at the age of 16-18 months. Seven days after vaccination, about one-third of the 106 bulls in the first group developed clinical signs of B. bigemina infection, which peaked at day 9, and then diminished from day 11, when the patent period known for B. bovis infection was observed. Because of the severe clinical responses a total of 36% of the bulls required babesicidal treatment. Despite the treatment Babesia were not sterilized: 33 and 68% of the animals remained PCR positive for B. bigemina and B. bovis, respectively. To mitigate the severe responses to vaccination, the 27 bulls of the second group were vaccinated in two-steps: they were inoculated initially with avirulent culture-derived parasites and then vaccinated with the conventional donor-derived vaccine a month later. None of the bulls in the latter group developed clinical babesiosis, all were serologically positive to B. bigemina, and 67% showed seroconversion to B. bovis. In light of the experience described here, it is suggested that sensitive older cattle be vaccinated against babesiosis by priming them with avirulent in vitro-cultured parasites and then inoculating them with the conventional donor-derived vaccines.

Babesia bovis merozoites invade human, ovine, equine, porcine and caprine erythrocytes by a sialic acid-dependent mechanism followed by developmental arrest after a single round of cell fission

Babesia bovis infections have only been observed in bovine species in contrast to Babesia divergens that also can infect humans, sheep and rodents. Using an in vitro assay that assesses invasion of erythrocytes by free merozoites after a 1-h incubation period, it was shown that specificity is not determined by host-specific interactions associated with invasion. Human erythrocytes were invaded more efficiently than bovine erythrocytes whereas erythrocytes of sheep, pigs and horses were invaded only slightly less efficiently. In contrast, goat erythrocytes were refractory to efficient invasion. Significant differences in invasion efficiency into erythrocytes from different individuals of the same species were observed. Erythrocytes from all species, except for goats, supported intracellular development of newly invaded merozoites and high numbers of duplicated parasites, located in a morphologically normal accole position, were present. Only in bovine erythrocytes did subsequent rounds of invasion, leading to increased parasitaemia, take place. This suggests that host specificity is determined by factors operating late in the erythrocytic stage of the B. bovis life cycle. Incubation of erythrocytes with neuraminidase prior to invasion led to a decrease in invasion efficiency of approximately 80%. This effect was observed for several species. The removal of either alpha(2-3)-linked or alpha(2-6)-linked sialic acid residues gave similar levels of reduction whereas simultaneous removal did not show an additive effect. Pre-incubation of merozoites with N-acetylneuraminyl-lactose decreased invasion efficiency by approximately 45% whereas addition just prior to invasion had no significant effect. The results demonstrate that invasion is dependent on the presence of sialic-acid containing membrane receptors on erythrocytes that interact with merozoite ligands that are probably already accessible during pre-incubation prior to invasion.

Avaliação clínica e hematológica em bezerros Nelore infectados experimentalmente com isolados de Babesia bigemina das regiões Sudeste, Nordeste e Norte do Brasil

O presente trabalho teve por objetivo estudar comparativamente as alterações clínicas e hematológicas desencadeadas por isolados de Babesia bigemina das regiões Sudeste, Nordeste e Norte do Brasil em bezerros Nelore infectados experimentalmente. Foram utilizados 18 bezerros com idade entre sete e nove meses, isentos de anticorpos contra Babesia sp. e criados livres de carrapatos. Três animais foram previamente inoculados com 2,0x10(9) eritrócitos parasitados (EP) para cada isolado. Os outros 15 bezerros foram subdivididos em três grupos de cinco animais, que foram subinoculados com 1,0x10(10) EP dos respectivos isolados. Foram avaliadas as alterações clínicas e hematológicas por meio da determinação da parasitemia, do hemograma, do fibrinogênio plasmático, da contagem de reticulócitos, da análise descritiva da medula óssea e da fragilidade osmótica eritrocitária, no decorrer de 30 dias, perfazendo um total de sete momentos de observação. O acompanhamento da resposta imunológica pelo teste de imunofluorescência indireta foi realizado diariamente até o 10º dia pós-inoculação (DPI) e posteriormente no 15º, 20º, 25º e 30º DPI. Clinicamente, observou-se uma manifestação muito branda da doença. Os achados laboratoriais revelaram baixos níveis de parasitemia; decréscimo nos valores do eritrograma; ausência de reticulócitos; diminuição inicial na contagem total dos leucócitos, neutrófilos e linfócitos com posterior elevação do número destas células; hipercelularidade da série eritrocítica e decréscimo da relação mielóide:eritróide mais acentuada entre o 8º e 12º DPI e um aumento da fragilidade osmótica eritrocitária nos grupos inoculados com os isolados sudeste e nordeste. Nenhum dos três isolados de B. bigemina desencadeou a forma clínica característica da enfermidade, apesar de induzirem uma resposta imune humoral.

Immunity following use of Australian tick fever vaccine: a review of the evidence

OBJECTIVE

To review the evidence available on the degree and duration of immunity provided by Australian tick fever vaccines against Babesia bovis, B. bigemina and Anaplasma marginale infections in Australia and overseas.

BACKGROUND

Vaccines containing attenuated strains of B bovis and B bigemina as well as A. centrale grown in splenectomised calves have been used in Australia since 1964 to immunise cattle against tick fever. About 800,000 doses of vaccine are supplied annually and much of the evidence for protection is field evidence rather than conventional immunological measures or pen trials.

CONCLUSIONS

Immunity to Babesia bovis and B. bigemina--A single inoculation generally provides sound, long-lasting protection both in Australia and overseas. No evidence was found of a loss of immunity with time. Vaccine failures to B. bovis do occur, but are uncommon and evidently caused by a number of factors, including immune responsiveness of the vaccinated animals, and immunogenicity of the vaccine strain. Immunity to Anaplasma marginale--The vaccine containing A. centrale provides partial, variable protection against A. marginale. Protection against challenge in Australia is adequate in most cases to prevent disease and use of the vaccine in this country appears to be justified. Protection against antigenically diverse, highly virulent stocks of A. marginale in other countries is, at times, clearly inadequate and better vaccines are required in situations where the challenge is severe.

Identification of antigenic differences that discriminate between cattle vaccinated with Anaplasma centrale and cattle naturally infected with Anaplasma marginale

Monoclonal antibodies were raised against the vaccine strain of Anaplasma centrale used in Australia. A monoclonal antibody that reacted with an 80 kDa antigen was used to develop an A. centrale-specific fluorescent antibody test that will be useful for confirming species identity in patent infections. Another monoclonal antibody that reacted with a 116 kDa antigen was used to develop an A. centrale-specific competitive inhibition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the serological identification of vaccinated cattle. The sensitivity of the ELISA was 100% in cattle experimentally infected with A. centrale, 97.1% in a vaccinated beef herd and 98.3% in a vaccinated dairy herd. The specificity of the ELISA was 98.6% in non-vaccinated cattle outside the Anaplasma marginale-endemic area, 97.9% in non-vaccinated cattle within the A. marginale-endemic area and 100% in cattle experimentally infected with A. marginale. The ELISA detected antibodies to A. centrale in cattle up to 9 years after vaccination with no apparent decrease in sensitivity. The assay has proved extremely valuable in Australia for investigating reported failures of multivalent live vaccines used to protect cattle against anaplasmosis and babesiosis, and should be similarly useful elsewhere in the world where these types of vaccines are used, e.g. Israel and South America.

Effect of breed of cattle on innate resistance to infection with Anaplasma marginale transmitted by Boophilus microplus

OBJECTIVE

To assess the innate resistance of and transmission in naive Bos taurus cross Bos indicus and purebred Bos indicus cattle when placed in a paddock with cattle infected with Anaplasma marginale and carrying Boophilus microplus ticks.

DESIGN

A group of 49 purebred B indicus, and 48 B indicus cross B taurus (50%, F1 generation) 24-month-old steers were kept in the same paddock with cattle artificially infected with a virulent isolate of A marginale and Boophilus microplus. The cattle were seronegative for A marginale at the start of the trial but had previously been exposed to Babesia bovis and B bigemina.

PROCEDURE

Cattle were inspected twice weekly for 118 days. Whole blood, blood smears and serum samples were collected from the cattle on day 37 after exposure and then at regular intervals to day 83 after exposure to measure packed-cell volumes, parasitaemias and antibody titres to A marginale. Any animals that met preset criteria were treated for anaplasmosis. On day 83 all cattle were treated with an acaricide and cattle infected with A marginale were removed from the rest of the group.

RESULTS

A marginale was detected in blood smears from 14 crossbred and 9 B indicus steers between days 56 and 72 after exposure. Five and two of the infected crossbred and B indicus steers required treatment, respectively. One of the Bos indicus cattle died as a result of the A marginale infection despite treatment. Antibodies to A marginale were detected in the 23 infected cattle. The mean packed-cell volume depression was 40 and 37% in the affected crossbred and Bos indicus groups, respectively. There was no significant difference detected in susceptibility between these two groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Innate resistance of purebred B indicus and crossbred cattle was not significantly different. The results confirm that purebred B indicus and crossbred cattle are sufficiently susceptible to warrant the use of vaccination against Anaplasma infections.

Effect of breed of cattle on transmission rate and innate resistance to infection with Babesia bovis and B bigemina transmitted by Boophilus microplus

OBJECTIVE

To assess the effect of breed of cattle on the transmission rates of and innate resistance to Babesia bovis and B bigemina parasites transmitted by Boophilus microplus ticks.

DESIGN

Groups of 56 purebred B indicus and 52 B indicus cross B taurus (50%, F1 generation) steers were placed in a paddock seeded with and also naturally infested with B microplus which were the progeny of females ticks fed on B taurus cattle specifically infected with a virulent isolate of B bovis. The cattle were placed in the infested paddock 50 days after seeding had started.

PROCEDURE

Cattle were inspected from horseback daily for 50 days. Clinically ill cattle were brought to yards and assessed by monitoring fever, depression of packed-cell volume, parasitaemia and severity of clinical signs. Any animals that met preset criteria were treated for babesiosis. Blood samples were collected from all cattle on day 28, 35 and 42 after exposure and antibodies to Babesia spp and packed cell volume measured.

RESULTS

All steers, except for one crossbred, seroconverted to B bovis and B bigemina by day 35 and 75% of the crossbred steers showed a maximum depression in packed cell volume of more than 15% due to infection with Babesia spp compared with only 36% of the B indicus group. Ten of the 52 crossbreds and 1 of the 56 B indicus steers showed severe clinical signs. Two of the crossbreds required treatment of which one died 2 weeks after initial treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Pure-bred B indicus cattle have a high degree of resistance to babesiosis, but crossbred cattle are sufficiently susceptible to warrant the use of preventive measures such as vaccination. Transmission rates of B bovis and B bigemina to B indicus and crossbred cattle previously unexposed to B microplus were the same.