A partially protective clone from Cowdria ruminantium identified by using a Salmonella vaccine delivery system

A strategy has been developed to screen the Cowdria genome, using a Salmonella vaccine delivery system, to identify genes that code for protection-stimulating proteins. We have cloned mini-libraries of Cowdria into this Salmonella system, used the recombinant bacteria to immunize outbred mice, and then challenged them after two weeks with a lethal dose of Cowdria. When one of these mini-libraries was tested in a group of 5 mice, one mouse lived much longer than the others. The experiment was repeated with each of the clones from the mini-library being tested individually in 10 mice, and one mouse survived the challenge. This clone has been tested repeatedly in larger groups of mice and is proven to protect 14% of outbred mice against a lethal Cowdria challenge.