Vaccination against enteric red mouth disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia ruckeri

Recently the Danish research council has granted the project:”Understanding key mechanisms in mucosal immunity: Development of a new immersion vaccine”.
The main objective of the project is to develop a new vaccine which is long lasting and protective against both Y.ruckeri biotype 1 and a European isolate of biotype 2. Recently a new biotype (biotype 2) of Y. ruckeri has been isolated from farmed trout diagnosed with ERM across Europe although the fish had been vaccinated against ERM with the commercially available ERM-vaccine.
Further, we will develop a new vaccination strategy based on the hypothesis that booster vaccinations will improve and prolong the protection of the rainbow trout against ERM. The vaccine induced protection will be tested in laboratory bath challenge infections before and after booster vaccination. It is the goal that the effect of the experimental vaccine and the most effect full booster method will be confirmed in a field experiment at a commercial fish farm with ERM biotype 2 disease problems.
We will in this project investigate the mucosal and systemic immune mechanisms behind the improved protective response by new molecular and immunological tools as well as a novel 3D bioimaging method. Since it is recently shown that rainbow trout is mainly infected with Y. ruckeri through the gills, will our research focus especially on vaccine induced development of immunity in gill tissue, since only one cell layer separate the bacteria containing water and the blood stream.
The project is currently in its preliminary phase and presentation will focus on future plans for the project.