Aquaculture is one of Norway`s most important sources for export next after oil and gas. This has been achieved amongst other means by the successful development of vaccines for fish against disease causing agents. Still, infectious diseases caused by viral, bacterial and parasites, is one of the major challenges in the aquaculture industry today. This project aimed to investigate the fundamentals of a vaccine technologies against intracellular bacterial infections. It is based on the vesicles secreted from the bacterial body and this technology is previously adapted to successful commercial vaccines against meningitis in humans.
Our research groups has previously shown that isolation of these extracellular vesicles with following immunization protected a zebrafish disease model from subsequent infections from several bacterial pathogens. Our highest interest has been investigation of a serious disease in salmon caused by the bacterium Piscirickettsia salmonis. To our surprise, when vaccinating the natural host, the Atlantic salmon, no protection was detected from the vaccine. In the salmon, the vaccine and the infection came from two different bacterial strain and we hypothesized that the protection capabilities of the vaccine was dependent on the bacterial strain or the growth conditions. Supported by this grant a collaboration was set up with researcher at University of Valdivia, Chile, which are expert in growing the bacteria. A researcher from the School of Pharmacy, University of Oslo travelled to Chile to learn how to grow the bacteria in different ways. In return a researcher from Chile, spent three months at University of Oslo to test various bacterial strains in our zebrafish model. We also discussed our results in a workshop set up with experts in salmon infection at Memorial University, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. Our conclusion was that there are both growth requirements and strain specificities that need to be considered for the vaccinations using the vesicle technology.
Aquaculture is one of Norway`s most important sources for export next after oil and gas. This has been achieved amongst other means by the successful development of vaccines for fish against disease causing agents. Still, infectious diseases caused by viral, bacterial and parasites, is one of the major challenges in the aquaculture industry today. This project aims to pursue investigations into the fundamentals of new vaccine technologies against intracellular bacterial infections. It is based on the biogenesis of extracellular vesicles secreted from the bacterial body. These investigations are currently performed in our laboratory at the University of Oslo. We have ongoing discussion with international pharmaceutical companies within animal healthcare in developing vaccines based on the technology. However, there is complementary expertise at the laboratory at Universidad Austral de Chile that will be highly valuable. In the proposed project researcher from Norway will travel to Chile to gain knowledge of vesicle biogenesis in various bacterial strains problematic in aquaculture. Bacterial strain relevant for further studies will be transferred to the Oslo laboratory and tested in our developed infection model by visiting scientist from Chile. Through the work, the Norwegian and Chilean partners will identify potential knowledge gaps and seek necessary new collaborators in Northern America to build a strong international partnership. The transfer of know-how and the set-up of a collaboration between the two research groups will make large advancements within this field that would benefit both Norway and Chile, two of the major players within aquaculture of salmonids in the world.
