Vaccination of cattle with chemically modified and unmodified salt-extractable proteins from Brucella abortus

Beef heifers were vaccinated on Day 0 with either salt-extractable protein (CSP) or chemically modified CSP (dCSP) from Brucella abortus Strain 19 in Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA). Six weeks later, vaccination was repeated, and heifers received either the homologous or heterologous vaccine. Another group of heifers received only FCA and saline. Vaccinations with CSP or dCSP stimulated marked antibody responses to B. abortus, as detected by standard serologic tests, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, or a quantitative fluorametric immunoassay. Twelve percent of the heifers were seropositive by the CARD test 1 year after vaccination. Vaccination stimulated an increased cell-mediated immune response as measured by lymphocyte blast transformation (LBT) to B. abortus antigens. Fifty-six weeks after the initial vaccination, the heifers were challenged intraconjunctivally with 1.9 × 10⁷ colony-forming units of B. abortus strain 2308. Sixty to 83% of the heifers aborted in each group and 70–83% of the heifers were culture positive. There were no significant differences (P>0.05) among groups with respect to the number of abortions or the number of culture-positive heifers. Antibody responses increased rapidly within 4 weeks after challenge. Overall, antibody responses were greater for heifers that aborted than for those that did not abort. These differences were significant (P<0.05) only as measured by the fluorometric procedure. The LBT responses appeared to be higher for vaccinates than for the control group, but these differences were not significant (P>0.20). There was a significantly lower (P<0.05) LBT response to heat-killed B. abortus in those heifers that aborted compared to those that did not.