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Serological Analysis Of Equine Antibody Responses To The Facultative Intracellular Bacteria Corynebacterium Pseudotuberculosis, Roberta Pollock, Dina Abdel-Massih, Luca Valle, Alexis Buchnam, Sharon Spier

Roberta Pollock

Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis is a gram positive facultative intracellular bacteria that causes pigeon fever or dryland distemper in horses. Most infected horses develop large pus-filled external abscesses, which resolve with a low mortality rate. Some infected horses develop internal abscesses, and about 40% of these animals die. Our hypothesis is that the TH1 toTH2 balance determines the form of the disease: TH1 dominance leads to external abscesses and TH2 dominance leads to internal abscesses. We developed an ELISA that measures the antibody response to phospholipase D (PLD), the major antigen and exotoxin of the bacteria, and screened 50 infected and uninfected …