The effect of dose and line on immunisation of cattle with lymphoblastoid cells infected with Theileria annulata

Thirty-one Friesian calves in Morocco susceptible to tropical theileriosis were protected against a lethal sporozoite challenge by prior infection with lymphoblastoid cell lines infected and transformed in vitro by a Moroccan stock of Theileria annulata. The challenge infection of cryopreserved sporozoites killed all four susceptible control calves within 20 days. Four schizont-infected cell cultures at Passage 3 were inoculated at four different doses, 10(8), 10(6), 10(4) and 10(2), into pairs of calves. The recipient animals showed great variation in severity of disease symptoms, which did not show a linear correlation with the cell dose inoculated. The most severe disease symptoms were recorded, prior to challenge, in the 10(2) cell dose recipients; one animal died of acute theileriosis and another had to be treated. One of the four cell lines used was more virulent than the other three. Two years after the completion of this experiment, immunised animals have shown normal productivity traits.