What do cattle, European badgers, and gut bacteria have in common? They are all central players in a complex web surrounding a disease that affects multiple species, often with devastating results – tuberculosis. Now, new research funded by Morris Animal Foundation is shedding light on how one player, gut bacteria, may help protect both badgers and cattle from this common, pervasive and deadly illness.
What do cattle, European badgers, and gut bacteria have in common? They are all central players in a complex web surrounding a disease that affects multiple species, often with devastating results – tuberculosis. Now, new research funded by Morris Animal Foundation is shedding light on how one player, gut bacteria, may help protect both badgers and cattle from this common, pervasive and deadly illness.
A major outbreak of bovine tuberculosis is significantly impacting agriculture in the United Kingdom. Badgers are known carriers of Mycobacterium bovis (the bacteria that causes tuberculosis in cattle) and are suspected to be a source of disease spread. The use of the human tuberculosis vaccine, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, in badgers was considered to be a humane and long-term solution to reduce TB spillover from badgers but was falling short on effectiveness.
Dr. Jorge Gutierrez, University of Surrey researcher and lead author of the paper, wanted to know why and wondered if both the reason for this shortfall and its solution could be found in the gut bacteria of badgers.
The team, along with collaborators at the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency, found gut bacteria from badgers may be decreasing the effectiveness of the BCG vaccine, but at the same time may be killing off M. bovis. It’s a bad news/good news scenario that may help improve tuberculosis prevention. The team’s findings recently were published in BMC Microbiology.
Read more at Morris Animal Foundation
Photo Credit: Beeki via Pixabay
