Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (3): 1268-1277.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2024.03.038

• BASIC VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Establishment of Rabbit Challenge Model of Mycoplasma bovis

WU Wenying1,2,3, XIA Qing1, HU Mengjie1, ZHAO Yixuan1, WANG Chen1,2,3, ZHANG Yuhao1,2,3, HAO Chengwu4, HE Sun4, GUO Aizhen1,2,3, CHEN Jianguo1,2, CHEN Yingyu1,2,3*   

  1. 1. College of Animal Sciences & Technology/College of Veterinary Medicine, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China;
    2. The Cooperative Innovation Center for Sustainable Pig Production, Wuhan 430070, China;
    3. State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbial Resources Exploitation and Utilization, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China;
    4. Tiankang Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Urumqi 830011, China
  • Received:2023-06-12 Online:2024-03-23 Published:2024-03-27

Abstract: Mycoplasma bovis is one of the important pathogens causing bovine respiratory disease syndrome (BRD), which has caused immeasurable economic losses to the cattle industry. Mycoplasma bovis is resistant to most antibiotics, and there is no good drug to treat it at present. Therefore, vaccination is the most effective prevention and control method. The lack of a small animal evaluation model is one of the important constraints for the development of Mycoplasma bovis vaccines. The small animal challenge model was established to provide a certain research basis for the follow-up vaccine research and preparation, and reduce the scientific research cost of follow-up experiments. In order to establish a small animal model of Mycoplasma bovis infection, two-month-old Japanese big-eared white rabbits were used in this study and divided into 4 groups:1) Mycoplasma bovis strain HB0801 was challenged alone, 2) Mycoplasma bovis strain HB0801 was challenged with dexamethasone, 3) Mycoplasma bovis strain HB0801 was challenged with KLH and thioglycollate medium. 4) Blank control group. The excretion of Mycoplasma bovis was detected by PCR, and the level of antibody in serum was detected. The lungs were taken to make pathological sections after 31 days. The results showed that both the detection rate of M. bovis and the antibody against M. bovis were the highest in the group challenged with M. bovis HB0801 strain after injection of dexamethasone. The detection rate of M. bovis was 42.11%, and 91.67% of the animals tested positive for M. bovis. It was significantly higher than other groups. Except for the blank control group, the other challenge groups showed alveolar wall thickening, macrophage infiltration,and different degrees of fibrinous exudation in the lungs, which were consistent with the pathological characteristics of interstitial pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma bovis. In this study, the infection and evaluation model of Mycoplasma bovis HB0801 strain challenge in Japanese big-eared white rabbits was established, and the best modeling effect was achieved when the immunosuppression was induced by dexamethasone.

Key words: Mycoplasma bovis, animal model, rabbit, dexamethasone

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