PlB—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 17,1984
FORT COLLINS, Co. - A highly
technical GNA probe, created only
recently for human research, has
been adapted to identify bovine
herpes, a virus that causes
significant losses in the cattle
industry.
The adapted probe, developed at
Colorado State University, can
pinpoint the virus: that
traditionally has been difficult to
identify in tissue samples removed
from cattle suspected of being
afflicted with bovine herpes.
Once the virus is identified,
operators will be able to cull out
infected cattle. The virus is
believed to play an important role
in causing abortions in dairy cows
and illnesses and deaths due to
respiratory disease in feedlot
cattle.
The probe also is expected to
help researchers trace the path of
the virus through an animal a
process that could aid research on
human herpes.
“The probe could show us how
the virus moves through an in
fected cow,'whether it infects the
reproductive tract and if it
remains latent and can be a
potential to cause future abor
tions,” said Dr. Carol Blair, CSU
microbiologist in charge of the
research.
“We think it will help in
developing a successful and safe
vaccine for cattle. In turn, we hope
that can be used as a model for
developing a vaccine for human
herpes.”
The USDA-funded project is a
collaboration with CSU resear
chers Barry Beaty, a
microbiologist, and Richard
Bowen, a physiologist.
The CSU probe was adapted
from a breakthrough made by Dr.
David C. Ward, department of
Human Genetics, Yale University
School of Medicine.
Ward used molecular biology to
develop a diagnostic probe that
allows scientists to put a non
radioactive label on virus DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid), the raw
material of all heredity. Then,
researchers can use the labeled
DNA to locate and identify viruses
in human tissue.
The DNA probe is beneficial
because it can find a virus even if
tissue is in bad shape. “The virus
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DNA probe aids bovine herpes defection
DNA is frequently protected even
if the specimen has deteriorated,”
Blair explained. “It remains in the
nucleus of the cells and is
protected from the enzymes that
break down the infectious vims in
the tissue.”
The process of finding foreign
DNA has been used for several
years, only with radioactive labels.
However, because radioactive
material was needed, the method
has not been commonly used in
dianostic labs, especially in the
cattle industry. The new non
radioactive method will allow
wider use of the method.
“Most diagnostic laboratories
haven’t been in the position to use
radioactive material,” Blair said.
“They don’t have a license to use
it, or they can’t dispose of the
material properly. Or their
technicians don’t know how to use
it. But now a diagnostic lab can
take tissue that is in bad shape and
test it with the non-radioactive
probe.”
Blair will discuss the probe and
research on bovine and human
herpes in a 1 p.m. presentation
April 14 at CSU’s Veterinary
Teaching Hospital as part of the
annual open house for the
university’s College of Veterinary
Medicine and Biomedical Scien
ces.
The bovine herpes research is
part of a project that began as a
joint effort among researchers
here and at the University of
Colorado Health Sciences Center,
Denver.
CSU researchers are trying to
develop a vaccine for bovine
herpes that also can be used as a
model to assist scientists at the
Health Sciences Center create a
human vaccine.
The research is developing into
many questions that researchers
have been unable to answer about
either human or bovine herpes.
One question is how bovine
herpes moves through an animal.
Bovine herpes is believed to
enter as an airborne virus through
an animal’s nasal passages. Then,
it moves to sensory nerve ganglia
in the head.
From there, speculates the most
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popular theory, the virus moves in
white blood cells to the
reproductive tract where it can
cause abortions.
There is concern that the virus
might remain latent. If this is true,
infected bulls used for artificial
insemination might be able to pass
on infected semen.
“But this hasn’t been proven,”
Blair said. ‘ We’re hoping that with
the probe we can find out if the
virus does move this way and
whether it remains latent once in
the reproductive tract.”
Vaccines have been used in the
last two decades to prevent bovine
herpes, but the treatments un
fortunately are not completely
effective, Blair said.
Despite the vaccines, the loss
from bovine herpes is millions of
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dollars a year. “In Colordao, it
amounts to hundreds of thousands
of dollars,” Blair added.
As with humans infected with
herpes, stress is believed to play
an integral role in causing bovine
herpes to flare up in cattle, even
vaccinated animals.
“When vaccinated cattle are
shipped to feedlots, their immunity
apparently breaks down from the
stress of being moved and crowded
together,” Blair said. “They often
get infected and they don’t eat. In a
feedlot, it’s important that they do
eat. That’s why they are there.
“So that is an economic loss. But
it can be worse. Somehow the virus
leaves their respiratory tract open
to bacterial pneumonia that
frequently will kill the animals.”
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