Field trial of a staphylococcal mastitis vaccine in dairy herds: clinical, subclinical and microbiological assessments

Objective To assess the efficacy of a new staphylococcal mastitis vaccine under commercial dairying conditions.
Design A field trial involving 1819 cows and heifers conducted on seven dairy herds in Victoria. The trial was done 'blind'; approximately half the animals were vaccinated and the remainder were untreated controls.
Procedure The vaccine was given twice during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy. Effects of vaccination were assessed, during the ensuing lactation, on the basis of clinical and sub-clinical mastitis and microbiological investigations of the milk.
Results A total of 273 cases of clinical mastitis were recorded. Staphylococcus aureus was isolated from 112 of these, 45 cases in vaccinates and 67 cases in controls; the difference was not statistically significant. One herd was notable in having a high incidence of clinical staphylococcal mastitis. This herd accounted for 15.8% of the animals in the field trial but 54.5% of cases of clinical staphylococcal mastitis. For this herd, vaccinated animals had significantly lower incidence of clinical staphylococcal mastitis and prevalence of subclinical mastitis, relative to controls. An unexpected feature of the trial as a whole was the low incidence of clinical mastitis from which S aureus was isolated in pure culture (26.3% of cases) and the high incidence of clinical Streptococcus uberis mastitis (22.7% of cases).
Conclusions The trial showed that the vaccine was efficacious in reducing the incidence of clinical mastitis and prevalence of subclinical mastitis in a herd that had a serious staphylococcal mastitis problem.     

Microbial diffusion assay for antibiotics in feeds using a simplified design

Results are compared for the microbiological analysis of antibiotics in feeds using the AOAC plate diffusion assay and the simplified 2-plate assay. Five antibiotics, bacitracin, chlortetracycline, oxytetracycline, penicillin, and streptomycin, were used to supplement feed extracts at levels of 100 and 25 micrograms antibiotic/g feed (bacitracin at 100 micrograms/g only). For bacitracin at the one level and for penicillin at both levels, the 2-plate design yielded significantly more accurate results than those of the AOAC assay. The same was true for the 25 micrograms/g level of oxytetracycline and the 100 micrograms/g level of streptomycin. For streptomycin at the 25 micrograms/g supplementation, the AOAC assay results showed better accuracy. There was no significant difference in results between the 2 designs for oxytetracycline at 100 micrograms/g and chlortetracycline at either level. The accuracy and precision of the results for the 2-plate design are equivalent to or better than those obtained using the AOAC design; in addition, the 2-plate assay is less labor-intensive, is more cost-effective, and is able to determine reasonable conditions of similarity.     

Deuterium isotope effect on carbon isotope fractionation in photosynthesis

Plants grown in D(2)O show a decreased tendency to fractionate carbon-13 during photosynthetic incorporation of carbon dioxide. The isotopic ratio C(13)/C(12) of the tissues of deuterated plants appears to be proportional to the deuterium content of the tissue. This effect was found in specimens of the partially deuterated vascular plant Nicotiana tabacum as well as in cultures of the fully deuterated alga Chlorella vulgaris.     

Preferred microtubules for vesicle transport in lobster axons

The hypothesis that transported vesicles are preferentially associated with a subclass of microtubules has been tested in lobster axons. A cold block was used to collect moving vesicles in these axons; this treatment caused the vesicles to accumulate in files along some of the microtubules. Quantitative analysis of the number of vesicles associated with microtubule segments indicated that lobster axons have two distinct populations of microtubules--transport microtubules that are the preferred substrates for vesicle transport and architectural microtubules that contribute to axonal structure.     

Primary Production in Antarctic Sea Ice

A numerical model shows that in Antarctic sea ice, increased flooding in regions with thick snow cover enhances primary production in the infiltration (surface) layer. Productivity in the freeboard (sea level) layer is also determined by sea ice porosity, which varies with temperature. Spatial and temporal variation in snow thickness and the proportion of first-year ice thus determine regional differences in sea ice primary production. Model results show that of the 40 teragrams of carbon produced annually in the Antarctic ice pack, 75 percent was associated with first-year ice and nearly 50 percent was produced in the Weddell Sea.