Vaccination against Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae

Abstract

Since the early beginnings in the field of A. pleuropneumoniae vaccine research a lot of great developments have been made. The inactivated whole-cell bacterial vaccines are despite their great advantages such as presenting a various number of antigenic determinants to the immune system without any worries for reversion issues, the least promising vaccines to obtain an efficient protection. This statement is supported by the fact, that killed bacteria are not able to colonize und remain in the respiratory tract which is necessary for the presentation of in vivo antigens. In addition the inactivated whole-cell bacterial vaccines are lacking in cross-serotype protection which is another point for the inefficacy of this kind of vaccine strategy. But it can also be used as vaccines if the exact serotypes of A. pleuropneumoniae in the swine herd are known, because the vaccines can be adapted to the serotypes so that the vaccines contain the same serotypes which are found in the swine herd. That can give an adequate protection against A. pleuropneumoniae; however it won’t protect the pigs against any serotype which is not part of the vaccine.In return, this review shows that the live attenuated and subunit vaccines are of more promising potential. In my opinion are the live attenuated vaccines despite the problem of safety and ethical challenges connected with the use of live bacteria, the most promising research field with the best results. The reason is that the vaccination with live attenuated bacteria reflects a natural infection and allows the in vivo expression of immunogenic antigens within the host which is of major importance to be efficient.