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In mammals, interleukin-21 (IL-21) is an immunomodulatory cytokine with pleiotropic effects on the proliferation, differentiation and effector functions of T, B. NK and dendritic cells. A cDNA encoding the chicken orthologue of IL-21 (chIL-21) was cloned by RT-PCR from RNA…

During the fall of 2006, in Israel, epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) serotype 7 caused an intense and widespread epizootic in domestic cattle that resulted in significant economic losses for the dairy industry. The susceptibility of potential North American vector…

Dendritic cells (DCs), especially plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs), produce large amounts of alpha/beta interferon (IFN-alpha/beta) upon infection with DNA or RNA viruses, which has impacts on the physiopathology of the viral infections and on the quality of the adaptive immunity…

Bovine mastitis remains the most common and costly disease of dairy cattle worldwide. A complementary control measure to herd hygiene and vaccine development would be to selectively breed cattle with greater resistance to mammary infection. Toll-like receptor 1 (TLR1) has an…

Outbreaks of avian influenza in poultry can be devastating, yet many of the basic epidemiological parameters have not been accurately characterised. In 1999-2000 in Northern Italy, outbreaks of H7N1 low pathogenicity avian influenza virus (LPAI) were followed by the…

Truck trap collections of Culicoides biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) were made during 2 yr of sampling from 2008 to 2009 at a farm site in southern England. Samples were collected from 810 sample runs carried out over 52 d and contained 7,095 Culicoides of which…

Foot and mouth disease virus causes a livestock disease of significant global socio-economic importance. Advances in its control and eradication depend critically on improvements in vaccine efficacy, which can be best achieved by better understanding the complex within-host…

Successful control of livestock diseases requires an understanding of how they spread amongst animals and between premises. Mathematical models can offer important insight into the dynamics of disease, especially when built upon experimental and/or field data. Here the…

We have characterized the organization, complexity, and expression of the porcine (Sus scrofa domestica) immunoglobulin lambda (IGL) light chain locus, which accounts for about half of antibody light chain usage in swine, yet is nearly totally unknown. Twenty-two IGL…

Immunoglobulin (IG) gene rearrangement and expression are central to disease resistance and health maintenance in animals. The IG kappa (IGK) locus in swine (Sus scrofa domestica) contributes to approximately half of all antibody molecules, in contrast to many other…