The Bovine Cellular Immunology Group

The Bovine Cellular Immunology Group has a long history investigating all aspects of the innate and adaptive immune responses in cattle. In recent years, this knowledge has been used to address and investigate the pathogenesis of bovine tuberculosis.

Mycobacterium bovis is the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis (TB). Left uncontrolled bovine TB causes a significant proportion of cases of human TB. The policy of skin testing and removal of infected animals had a major impact on the incidence of TB in the national herd. However, in recent years despite this control policy there has been a rise in the incidence of TB in UK cattle. This poses an increasing risk to human health and a major economic burden on the cattle industry and the taxpayer.

Spread of the disease is due to cattle to cattle transmission of infection as well as contamination of cattle from wildlife reservoirs. The existence of wildlife reservoirs makes permanent eradication of disease in cattle very difficult, if not impossible. Vaccination has the potential to provide a sustainable means of controlling the disease in the face of continued exposure of cattle to wildlife reservoirs.

The overall aim of the work is to dissect the mechanisms of immunity to M bovis in cattle and the development of novel control measures. The main research areas that contribute to this objective are.

Understanding innate and adaptive immunity and genetic resistance to disease.

• analysing the interaction of M bovis with antigen presenting cells (dendritic cells and macrophages)


• understanding the role of NK and gamma delta T cells


• defining the roles of CD4 and CD8 T cells as effector and memory cells

• determining the effectiveness of immunising neonatal calves in order that appropriate immune responses are primed early


• establishing the most effective way of boosting immunity


• developing effective diagnostics

Three complementary areas of expertise, headed by Dr Tracey Coffey, Dr Jayne Hope and Dr Bernardo Villarreal, drive the Group’s work.

Within the DEFRA/HEFCE/VTRI Initiative, the studies of tuberculosis aim to identify changes in host cell and bacterial gene expression within infected cells, which are associated with the ability of M. bovis to cause disease, and to identify features of the cellular immune response which correlate with immune or disease status.