Candidate Proteins Now Being Tested for Inclusion in Lawsonia Intracellularis Vaccines

Researchers with VID0-InterVac have started analysing proteins that offer potential for the creation of a protein based Lawsonia intracellularis vaccine. Lawsonia intracellularis, a bacteria found in about 90 percent of the world's swine herds, causes Ileitis, a swelling of the intestine in pigs.

Researchers with VIDO-InterVac are using various methods, including bioinformatics, or computer analysis, to identify proteins that can be used to create a vaccine.

Dr. Heather Wilson a Research Scientist with the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, says scientists are working to identify proteins that will trigger a B-Cell response or a T-Cell response.

Clip-Dr. Heather Wilson-VID0-InterVac:

We are studying Lawsonia intracellularis vaccine development because we want to make a protein-based vaccine. Alternative forms of vaccines could be using an inactivated bacteria or a killed bacteria. We wanted to use a very simplified version where you just have a few proteins derived from the bacteria and we grow them up and include them in the vaccine and we get a very targeted immune response.

The trick is trying to figure out which of the proteins out of all the bacterial proteins which ones do we want to include in the vaccines for it to be effective. We are testing some vaccine antigens right now that trigger a good B-Cell response, so produce antibodies.

That’s kind of half of the equation and right now we're just in the process of trying to identify T-Cell antigens using the bioinfromatics approach. That's fairly early days through the bioinfromatics but we're hoping within the year we can be testing our vaccine candidates.