Control of Emerging and Re-Emerging Poultry Respiratory Diseases in the United States

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: A. Improve the immunological presentation and performance of administered vaccines in poultry flocks B. Evaluate the CpG motif oligonucleotide administration to improve the efficacy of administered vaccines B. 3. The purpose of this research is to evaluate and analyze the safety, efficacy, and the associated immune response of different administration routes of CpG-motif oligonucleotides (ODN). The analysis of these CpG-motifs as potential immunostimulatory agents will be studied as described in the following objectives.

<P>APPROACH: Flock treatment is the preferred method of immunization for chickens via water or spray administrations. However, even with more efficient delivery systems along with the advent of more efficacious modified-live, killed and recombinant vaccines there still is a need to improve the presentation and performance of these existing vaccines. This is noticeably evident by the additional vaccination boosts often required to enhance bird immunity, as well as the continuous governmental and industry support for the development of novel vaccines to enhance the management of infectious diseases. The ability of CpG-motif ODN to elicit a mucosal immune response has been reported for several species and has been shown to induce both a systemic (humoral and cellular) and mucosal antigen-specific immune response. CpG-motif ODN administration before, during and after these vaccinations could enhance immunostimulatory responses of the original vaccine application as well as possibly eliminate any vaccine boost that may be needed.