IMMUNIZATION OF RABBITS AGAINST SARCOPTES SCABIEI VAR. CUNICULI

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Animal Health Research Institute, Dokki, Giza

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the protective role of Sarcoptes scabiei var. cuniculi antigen in immunizing rabbit against Sarcoptes mites. For this purpose, nine rabbits were divided into three groups. The first groups. The first group (five rabbits) was immunized with Sarcoptes antigen. The second group, (two rabbits) were injected with adjuvant only. The third group included two non immunized rabbits used as negative control. All rabbits of the three groups were challenged on day 35 with sarcoptes cuniculi. No clinical signs were detected in four rabbits of the immunized group, while the fifth rabbits showed restricted lesion with few numbers of mites. All the immunized rabbits developed higher specific antibody levels by ELISA. Seven polypeptides bands ranging from 14-8.2KDa were recognized in Sarcoptes antigen by SDS-PAGE. Immunoblot revealed that, hyper-immune sera contained antibodies that bound strongly to proteins of 142KDa. So Sarcoptes scabiei var. cuniculi antigen can be used as an effective compound to control Sarcoptes mange in rabbits.

Main Subjects