• Effect and comparison the immunogenicity of different adjuvants in the experimental Neospora caninum vaccine in mice
  • Seyedeh zahra Bootorabi,1 Ahad Olyaei,2 Mohammad mehdi Namavari,3,*
    1. Department of Veterinary Medicine, Kazerun Branch, Azad University, Iran
    2. Department of Veterinary Medicine, Kazerun Branch, Azad University, Iran
    3. Shiraz Branch, Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Shiraz, Iran


  • Introduction: Neospora caninum is an intracellular protozoan of the Apicomplexa and a cause of neosporosis, which has worldwide distribution, and is considered to be the most important cause of abortion in cattle causing many losses. So, It is an important economic issue around the world. Previously, various vaccine formulations have been measured and vaccines with live-attenuated strains have shown the most promising results in terms of protection. Adjuvants as auxiliary substances are important components of vaccines and using them is to improve the effectiveness of vaccines and increasing their immunity. Adjuvants enhance the cellular and humoral immune responses. In this research; we evaluated Neospora caninum live-attenuated strain with various adjuvants as the form of an experimental vaccine in BALB/C mice as the best laboratory model for neosporosis disease.
  • Methods: Sixty mice were randomly divided into ten equal groups, including the control, live-attenuated strain without adjuvant, live-attenuated strain with Aluminum hydroxide adjuvant, live-attenuated strain with Montanide oily adjuvant, live-attenuated strain with Chitosan adjuvant in four different groups with percentages of 25, 50, 70, 90% with Sigma brand, live-attenuated strain with Chitosan adjuvant with 90% percentage with Iranian brand and live-attenuated strain with combined adjuvant. They were all immunized in two phases with four weeks apart. Agglutination test and ELISA test were used to measure the humoral immunity response and gamma interferon test was used to measure cellular immunity response.
  • Results: The results showed that the group with live-attenuated strain with combined adjuvant produces the highest cellular and humoral immune response. The results also showed that mice immunized with live-attenuated strain with Iranian brand Chitosan adjuvant had a very good humoral and cellular response and were significantly different from the control group (Pv <0.05) and there is no significant difference in the immunized group with live-attenuated strain and with Sigma brand chitosan adjuvant.
  • Conclusion: In sum, the results of this study showed that; The research on Neospora caninum live-attenuated vaccine along with the combined adjuvant, is effective in mice to cause humoral and cellular immune response and immunization of mice with this is safe and completely effective method. Therefore, it is suggested that this experimental vaccine is used in additional research in order to achieve a functional vaccine for controlling the infection caused by Neospora caninum in farm animals such as cattle and sheep and even in dogs.
  • Keywords: Neospora caninum, adjuvants, immunization, mice, vaccine