Evaluation of Responses to Vaccination of Angus Cattle for Four Viruses that Contribute to Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex

Abstract

and Implications Initial antibody titers are maternally-derived from colostrum, then decay with age. Change in antibody titer levels were compared between four viruses contributing to the Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex (BRDC), and evaluation of response to vaccination indicated that antibody production will not occur when high levels of maternal antibodies are present. The maternal antibodies were found to decay with calf age for each of the four viruses, which allowed for the estimation of a maximum circulating titer level under which a positive antibody response to vaccination could occur. Phenotypic correlations were calculated between the antibody titers for the four viruses across multiple time points. Results indicate a difference in the response to vaccination between the four virus antigens.

Revealing how variations in antibody repertoires correlate with vaccine responses

“…Downey et al, 2013 demonstrated that the decay rate of maternal antibodies is rather low and that there is a threshold effect: the calves do not respond to the vaccine if the level of maternal antibodies exceeds a threshold and only respond when this level drops. Also, the impact of calf age on antibody response (titers) to BRD was previously shown to be insignificant (Kramer et al, 2017).…”

“…For each animal, four IgG samples were collected: three weeks prior to vaccination (referred to as "-3"), at the moment right after the first vaccination (referred to as "0"), three weeks postvaccination (referred to as "+3"), and six weeks post-vaccination (referred to as "+6"). Serum from each of the sequenced animals was also assayed for BRD-specific antibody titers at the same time points (Kramer et al, 2017) to quantify pre-existing immunity (e.g., resulting from maternal antibodies that are passed through milk from the mother to the child) and as a measure of vaccine success.…”

“…This article is a US Government work. It is not subject to copyright under 17 USC The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted August 9, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.06.454618 doi: bioRxiv preprint 27 viruses associated with bovine respiratory disease as described (Kramer et al, 2017). A second booster vaccination was applied three weeks later.…”

“…RNA was isolated using the Tempus TM spin RNA isolation kit as recommended by the manufacturer (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). Antibody titers were quantified as previously describe (Kramer et al, 2017).…”

“…The BRD is the costliest disease of beef cattle in North America (Taylor et al, 2010). Although vaccination reduces the risk of BRD, losses from BRD remain substantial and individuals respond very differently to the BRD vaccine (Kramer et al, 2017). In order to understand links between variants in cattle IG genes and antibody responses to the vaccine, we generated four Rep-Seq datasets (taken before and after the BRD vaccination) for each of 204 calves.…”