Development of a vaccine against annual ryegrass toxicity
Project start date: | 10 June 2006 |
Project end date: | 13 December 2006 |
Publication date: | 01 June 2009 |
Project status: | Completed |
Livestock species: | Sheep |
Relevant regions: | National |
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Summary
The Plant Toxins Research Group, CSIRO Livestock Industries, have previously developed a prototype vaccine based on modified tunicamycins and Australian foetal calf serum carrier proteins that successfully protected sheep from the clinical effects of Annual Ryegrass Toxicity in laboratory trials. A commercial assessment of the current vaccine concluded that a commercial partner could become involved as soon as formulation and administration aspects were resolved.
This project was designed based on these recommendations, with commercially important parameters such as vaccine dose, regime, antibody kinetics, vaccine stability and safety investigated in an 18 month project using 21 groups of merino sheep. The vaccine has been robust in performance. Sheep tolerated the vaccine well, with a commercially acceptable level of injection site reactions. There seems to be high degree of tolerance to differing doses, timing and storage of the vaccine. There was little significant difference in antibody kinetics among the groups and titres produced were consistently above what is thought to be protective levels based on previous successful challenge studies. All results in this study were positive in terms of the future progression of this vaccine through to a commercial product.
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Project manager: | Johann Schroder |
Primary researcher: | DELETED |