The equine immune system is a complex network of cells, tissues, and organs that work collaboratively to defend against pathogens and maintain homeostasis. It consists of innate and adaptive components, each with distinct functions and mechanisms. The innate immune system provides the first line of defense through physical barriers, phagocytic cells, and the complement system. The adaptive immune system involves lymphocytes, such as B cells and T cells, which generate specific responses to antigens and provide immunological memory. Research in equine immunology explores the interactions between these components, the impact of genetic and environmental factors on immune function, and the development of vaccines and therapeutics. This page gathers peer-reviewed studies and scholarly articles focusing on the mechanisms, regulation, and clinical applications of the equine immune system in health and disease.
Tatarov G, Khristov S, Martinov S, Gergov P, Khristova V.Attempts were made to produce inactivated vaccines against horse Herpes virus 1, using various inactivating agents and adjuvants, Best results were obtained with vaccine No 3 (glutaraldehide inactivator and "CTC" adjuvant). Used were two strains of the virus (St. Karaja and Varna). isolated in this country in cell cultures of a sucking pig kidney. Vaccine No 3 showed good immunogenic properties. Its application resulted in the full cease of abortions and respiratory diseases on the base of infection with the horse Herpes virus 1. The vaccination protects newborn colts from rhinopneumonitis if ...
Molenda J.Using the indirect hemagglutination test, antibodies against Enterobacteriaceae common antigen (CA) were tested in the sera of 123 horses, 142 cows, 108 sheep, 142 mature pigs and 60 piglets (3-4 weeks of age). Anti CA antibody level and antibody titers for somatic antigens (phenol-water extracts) various serogroups of E. coli (0149, 0138, 0115, 078, 09) and S. typhimurium were compared. Ca antibodies in titer equal or higher than 1:15 were found to occur in 100% of the examined horses and cows, while in the sera of 92% sheep, 80% of mature pigs and 60% of piglets antibodies to the common Ente...
Grădinaru DA, Stirbu C, Păltineanu D, Mironescu D, Manolescu N.The Wyoming strain of equine infectious anemia virus was adapted to cell cultures by 7 passages in horse leukocytes and 14 passages in fetal equine dermal and kidney cells. The virus was made evident by electron microscopy and immunodiffusion tests with antigens prepared from culture fluids.
Koj A, Kurdowska A.Antithrombin III and alpha 1-proteinase inhibitor isolated simultaneously from horse citrated plasma were tested for inhibitory activity against bovine trypsin and chymotrypsin, as well as elastase-like neutral proteinases from horse leucocytes. The stoichiometry of reaction and kinetic parameters (kass, Ko) were estimated and related to the protein pattern obtained after exposure of these proteinases to horse inhibitors as analyzed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE and PAGE-SDS). As shown by fast reaction rates and low values of dissociation constants the two inhibitors effectively ...
Ek N.Studies of transferrin (Tf) concentration in sera of sick horses were carried out using Mancini’s immunodiffusion technique. Relative values against a chosen reference serum were determined for a total of 112 horses. Horses with acute infections had Tf values significantly below the normal. The lowest individual Tf value in this group (46%) was found in a six-months-old foal with temperature 41°C and watery diarrhoea. Horses suffering from acute laminitis also had decreased Tf values. The lowest value in the whole material (45%) was found in a horse belonging to this group. There was a posi...
Tainturier D, Picavet DP, Badin De Montjoye T, Guaguere J, Tailliar S, Dabernat HJ, Ferney J.Serological response of pony mares to contagious equine metritis is studied comparing three techniques: slow agglutination, complement fixation and indirect immunofluorescence. Sera were taken from pony mares vaccinated with a heat inactivated suspension of Haemophilus equigenitalis, from experimentally-infected pony mares and from healthy horses. All three reactions detected antibodies in vaccinated and infected animals. The highest titers are observed with vaccinated mares. Titers are low in infected animals. Antibodies detected by indirect immunofluorescence appeared sooner and persisted lo...
Gilmour JS, Brown R, Johnson P.In an attempt to compare the equine grass sickness as reported in Europe with that described in the Republic of Colombia, sera from horses experiencing grass sickness in Scotland were used in neutralisation tests with Clostridium perfringens type A enterotoxin. The sera, from acute and chronic cases of the disease, failed to neutralise either crude or partially-purified enterotoxin. Neither were precipitin lines formed when the sera were treated against the toxin in immunoelectrophoresis. These results suggest that grass sickness in Europe and the equine disease in Colombia have a different ae...
Sentsui H, Kono Y.Six strains of equine infectious anemia (EIA) virus propagated in equine leukocyte cultures were found to agglutinate horse erythrocytes. Concentrated virus material containing about 20 units of complement fixation (CF) titer showed hemagglutinating (HA) titers ranging from 4 to 8 units. The HA activity remained stable after ether treatment and was reduced by trypsin, formaldehyde and KIO4. Cesium chloride equilibrium density gradient centrifugation revealed two populations of hemagglutinin, one in the density range of 1.15-1.16 g/ml coinciding with a peak of CF antigen and the other at round ...
Benton CV, Brown BL, Harshman JS, Gilden RV.Equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) was successfully inoculated onto cell cultures of canine and feline origin, resulting in chronic infections in these cultures. Infection of equine cell cultures, which were the previous sole in vitro source demonstrated for virus production, was also performed for comparative purposes. Determination of the nature of the virus produced in the heterologous as well as the equine cells was accomplished in several ways. SDS-PAGE of purified virus from the different cell lines indicated very similar protein composition. Immunological identity was observed in gel...
Pellegrini A, von Fellenberg R.The principal alpha-1-protease inhibitor of horse was fractionated by classical methods and analysed with a modified fibrinogen-agarose gel electrophoretic method of high sensitivity and resolving power. Starting with an electrophoretically homogeneous inhibitor in unfractionated serum, two isoinhibitor bands became apparent after fractionation with (NH4)2SO4 and DEAE-cellulose DE-52 ion-exchange chromatography. The isoinhibitors differed in electrophoretic migration and in the elution pattern from Sephadex G-100 gel filtration, but possessed identical antigenic determinants and enzyme specifi...
Dutta SK, Myrup A, Bumgardner MK.Six pony foals, experimentally infected with equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1), were studied for their lymphocyte responses to EHV-1 and phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulations. Lymphocyte blastic transformation in the presence of EHV-1 appeared as early as 2 days after the foals were inoculated, reached a peak in 7 to 10 days, and subsequently decreased. In contrast, the lymphocyte blastic transformation in the presence of PHA increased sharply, reaching a peak in 2 to 3 days, and then decreased to its lowest level in 10 days after which it returned to its near preinoculation level. As for the mecha...
Prescott JF, Ogilvie TH, Markham RJ.A lymphocyte stimulation test using antigens of Corynebacterium equi was used to compare the response of peripheral blood lymphocytes from foals with C equi pneumonia with those of clinically normal foals and adult horses. The test clearly distinguished infected foals from normal foals when tested in animals less than or equal to 2 months old. After the 2nd month, stimulation response from individual normal foals sometimes exceed those from infected foals, but mean stimulation response to C equi antigens was significantly (P less than 0.025) greater in 3- to 5-month-old infected foals when com...
Prokop O, Geserick G, Patzelt D, Meier F.The immunological comparison of human and equine Gc proteins showed partial identical reactions between both species. Immunizations of goats and rabbits with horse serum produced antisera able to recognize human Gc proteins.
Bryans JT.The immunogenic potency and safety of a chemically inactivated equine herpesvirus 1 vaccine with added adjuvant was evaluated by testing serum-neutralizing and complement-fixation antibody responses of pregnant Thoroughbred mares. The vaccinated population comprised 321 pregnant mares on 7 farms; 3 in Normandy, France; 1 in Kildare, Ireland; and 3 in central Kentucky. The pattern of antibody response to vaccination was found qualitatively and quantitatively similar to that of pregnant mares previously vaccinated and determined by challenge exposure to be immune to abortigenic infection under e...
Siegel RC, Cathou RE.Complexes of IgM equine anti-dansyl antibodies and different dansyl substituted carriers were tested for their ability to fix complement (C). Only dansyl92-Ficoll and dansyl12-poly-L-lysine were found to be effective. Dansyl13-bovine serum albumin, dansyl127-keyhole limpet hemocyanin, and reduced and alkylated dansyl10-ribonuclease were all ineffective. Lack of C fixation by the dansyl-ribonuclease was not due to lack of antibody-antigen complex formation, since binding at the concentrations employed for C fixation was established. However, in contrast, polymerized dansyl-ribonuclease (polydis...
Otani S, Arimitsu Y, Akama K.Antileptospiral sera from hyperimmunized horses were fractionated by gel filtration on Sephadex G-200 or by starch block electrophoresis. The fractions were examined quantitatively for leptospiricidal, agglutinating and complement fixing activities. The leptospiricidal activity was higher in the 78 globulin fraction than in the 19S globulin fraction, while the agglutinating activity was shared by both the fractions being higher in the 19S fraction. Complement fixing activity was found evenly in both the fractions. Leptospiricidal and complement fixing activities were higher in gamma-globulin t...
British medical journalSeptember 13, 1980
Volume 281, Issue 6242 699-702 doi: 10.1136/bmj.281.6242.699
English TA, Cooper DK, Cory-Pearce R.The major factors contributing to the recommencement of clinical heart transplantation in the United Kingdom last year were the steadily improving results from Stanford University, the clarification of the diagnosis of brain death, and advances in preserving donor hearts. Twelve men aged 16 to 52 years received heart transplants at Papworth Hospital from January 1979 to July 1980. Six had cardiomyopathies and six ischaemic heart disease. The donors were aged 16 to 35 (mean 21) years. A combination of road and air transport was used to transport the heart to Papworth in seven cases. The total d...
Niilo L, Bainborough AR.Sera from human, cattle, sheep, swine, and horse populations in western Canada were tested for the presence of Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin antibody by the passive hemagglutination (PHA) test, supplemented by an immunodiffusion test and by counterimmunoelectrophoresis. A total of 224 human, 345 cattle, 165 sheep, 620 swine, and 768 horse serum samples were examined. Low-titer reactions in the PHA test were detected in human, cattle, horse, and swine sera, in that order, with no titers demonstrated in sheep. The titers in human sera ranged up to 1:128 and three of these samples were also...
Lazary S, Bullen S, Müller J, Kovacs G, Bodo I, Hockenjos P, De Weck AL.Mono- and oligospecific lymphocytotoxic alloantibodies from primiparous mares were tested on cells from horse families of various breeds in the two-step microcytotoxicity assay. The results showed that the detected antigens were inherited co-dominantly and autosomally as simple Mendelian traits. The membrane antigens showed different linkage with one or more other antigens and seem to be coded by a limited number of loci (at least three) from one chromosome. In the families tested one recombinant for the serologically defined antigens was recognized. The mixed leukocyte reactions of cells from...
Lew AM, Hosking CS, Studdert MJ.Tests for T- and B-cell quantitation and immune function were developed, and their application in the diagnosis of primary severe combined immunodeficiency disease (CID) in Arabian foals was investigated. Foals with CID had severe lymphopenia and had small or zero numbers of B cells, as shown by immunofluorescence of surface immunoglobulin (Ig), erythrocyte-antibody-complement rosetting, and staphylococcal protein A rosetting. Serum IgM was undetectable in four CID foals 25 to 71 days old. Demonstrable antibody responses were not elicited in CID foals by phage phi X-174, a potent antigen in no...
Winder NC, Pellegrini A, von Fellenberg R.Using a peroxidase anti-peroxidase technique alpha-1-protease inhibitor (alpha-1-PI) was identified in normal equine hepatocytes in formalin-fixed liver sections, and in airway secretions and macrophages in formalin-fixed lung sections of horses with chronic small airway disease and chronic bronchointerstitial pneumonia. In addition, it was identified occasionally in macrophages in bronchoalveolar lavage samples from clinically healthy horses and from horses with chronic small airway disease. Equine peripheral blood leucocytes and formalin-fixed lung sections with normal histology were negativ...
Makrai L, Dénes B, Hajtós I, Fodor L, Varga J.Two hundred and twelve Rhodococcus equi strains were isolated from soil, nasal and rectal swabs of horses and immunocompromised human patients in Hungary and serotyped using Prescott's serotyping system. One hundred and forty-seven strains (69.3%) belonged to serotype 1, 22 strains (10.4%) to serotype 2, 6 strains (2.8%) to serotype 3 and 1 strain (0.5%) to serotype 4. Serotypes 5, 6 and 7 were not found and 36 strains (17%) could not be typed. Serotype 1 (72%) was the type most commonly isolated from clinical samples of foals or from the soil of horse facilities. Six out of 8 R. equi strains ...
von Zallinger C, Tempel K.A review of the latest literature concerning the present level of radiation therapy in veterinary medicine is given. In a general section physico-technical as well as biological fundamentals are discussed. In the special part of the paper indications for a radiation therapy of dogs, cats and horses are stated. In this respect the basis for a decision is the TNM-classification into different clinical stages according to the directions of the WHO. Tumors of the hemolymphatic system are very responsive to radiation therapy. While epithelial tumors are sensitive, tumors arising from the mesenchyma...