LACTATION MASTITIS THERAPY WITH THE NISIN-BASED PRODUCT MAST OUT~(TM) RESULTS OF A 125 Cow STUDY

摘要

Subclinical mastitis is 15 to 40 times more prevalent than clinical mastitis and is responsible for significantly more economic losses, but in contrast to clinical disease, goes largely untreated. Factors contributing to this include difficulty in diagnosis, lack of gross abnormality of milk, and the fact that antibiotic treatment of subclinical mastitis would necessitate discard of product that otherwise could go into the bulk tank. ImmuCell Corporation is developing a new intramammary infusion product based on the peptide antimicrobial Nisin A, for treatment of clinical and subclinical mastitis in lactating cows. Nisin A is a 34 amino acid peptide of the lanthionine class, produced by strains of Lactococcus lactis. It is one of the broadest spectrum bacteriocins, with rapid and potent bactericidal activity against most gram positive and many gram negative species. Nisin is one of the best understood bacteriocins, having been used commercially for 50 years as a preservative in certain foods. It binds to Lipid II in the bacterial cell wall, inducing potent killing via pore formation, In addition, nisin does not induce cross resistance to any known antibiotic (Breukink et al. 1999).