Brucella spp. are zoonotic infectious agents, primarily of livestock, that cause the disease brucellosis. Bovine brucellosis, caused by Brucella abortus, is of greatest concern due to the disease’s significant economical and public health impact. Canada fully eradicated bovine brucellosis from domesticated cattle herds in 1985, however, continued surveillance through screening for B. abortus exposure is paramount to the maintenance of bovine brucellosis eradication nationwide. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is responsible for the surveillance of bovine brucellosis outbreaks in Canada and the maintenance of eradication. Current B. abortus serodiagnostics and serological screening is mostly based on the detection of antibodies against Brucella lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a highly immunogenic component of the outer cellular membrane. Such tests face difficulties with false positive results due to cross reactivity with other Gram-negative bacteria that produce LPS. The purpose of the research presented here was to address this issue through identifying new B. abortus protein antigens for the improvement of serological test specificity. In this study, 101 candidates were identified through predictive bioinformatic analyses and selected for immunogenic evaluation. While none of the expressed candidates displayed positive serological activity with in-house brucellosis positive bovine serum panels, the workflow presented here can be used for continued research and the assessment of more proteins from B. abortus and other bacterial pathogens.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/42349 |
| Date | 30 June 2021 |
| Creators | Thompson, Riley Jacob |
| Contributors | Lin, Min, Lee, Seunghwan |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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