Anaplasma centrale str. Israel

Anaplasma marginale is the most prevalent tick-borne pathogen of cattle. It is transmitted by ixodid ticks. Symptoms of acute disease are anemia, weight loss, and often death. A.marginale establishes life-long persistent infection in animals that survive disease. These animals are clinically healthy but serve as reservoirs for transmission of the pathogen. Anaplasma marginale subsp. centrale (Anaplasma centrale (strain Israel)) is a naturally occurring attenuated strain has been used as a live vaccine to prevent severe disease due to A. marginale senso stricto strains for 100 years. A. marginale subsp. centrale contains 10 putative genes not found in the genomes of senso stricto strains, while 18 genes found in senso stricto strains are absent from A. marginale subsp. centrale. As inoculation with purified outer membrane protein (OMP) complexes provides immunity against A. marginale, it is important to identify OMPs that differ among A,marginale to identify further vaccine candidates. Comparative analysis reduces the number of candidate proteins to six: four Msp2 superfamily members (Msp4, Omp1, Omp7, and OpAG2) and two non-superfamily members (AM779/ACIS557 and AM854/ACIS486) (adapted from PMID 19854912). (HAMAP: ANACI)