Effects of Protein Supplementation During the Dry Season on Feed Intake and the Performance of Borgou Cows in Benin Republic

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of dry season protein supplementation of Borgou cows on feed intake, milk production, body weight and calves growth performance. Animals (24 cows) were all given a basal diet of straw bush ad libitum. Cows of 1st group (8 cows in each group) were complemented with a concentrate CC (50% dried brewer’s grains, 30% cassava chips, 15% dried cassava leaves, 2.5% dicalcium phosphate, 1.5% sodium chloride and 1% premix). Those of 2nd and 3rd groups received, respectively the concentrates CSC and SBM with the same composition as CC except that 20% of cassava chips were replaced by cottonseed cake in CSC and soybean meal in SBM. Protein supplementation had a significant effect (p0.05)

Antigen-specific B and T cells in human/mouse radiation chimera following immunization in vivo

Adoptive transfer of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) into mice with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) or into lethally irradiated BALB/c mice radioprotected with SCID bone marrow, leads to marked engraftment of human T and B cells. In such chimeras, human serum antibody responses can be stimulated readily by vaccination with recall antigens, but the detection of antigen-specific functional T or B cells has been extremely difficult. In the present study, we were able to detect by Elispot analysis high frequencies of immunoglobulin G (IgG)-secreting B cells and mitogen-responsive interferon-γ (IFN-γ) or interleukin-4 (IL-4)-secreting T cells in peritoneum and spleen of human/BALB/c chimeric mice during the first 3 weeks after PBMC transfer. Moreover, specific memory responses were elicited by vaccination with tetanus toxoid (TT) or hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface (HBs) antigen of chimeric mice transplanted with PBMC derived from TT- or HBV-immune donors. Substantially higher TT-specific B-cell frequencies were found during the first 3 weeks after vaccination in mice challenged with the specific antigen compared to the levels found in control animals. High numbers of TT-specific IFN-γ-secreting T cells persisted in the peritoneum of vaccinated, but not of unvaccinated, animals during the entire observation period, but only low numbers of specific IL-4-secreting T cells were found in vaccinated mice. Similar results were achieved following vaccination with HBs antigen of chimeric mice, transplanted with PBMC of HBV immunized donors. Thus, TT or HBsAg-specific antibody responses in our model correlate closely with the existence of specific IFN-γ-secreting T helper 1/0 cells. Furthermore, these results show that adoptive transfer of human PBMC into lethally irradiated mice provides an efficient approach to generate specific B-cell fusion partners for the production of human monoclonal antibodies and specific T-cell lines for adoptive cell therapy of malignant or infectious diseases