Inactivation of the Caprine Arthritis-Encephalitis Virus Among Goat Populations by Colostrum.

Abstract

<p>The Caprine Arthritis-Encephalitis Virus (CAEV) is able to infect goats of all ages, breeds, and in all locations. It is particularly devastating to goat populations and represents a major economic problem for goat farming worldwide as goats are a major source of sustenance and trade among most of the world. Finding a way to effectively inactivate and immunize for CAEV is crucial to maintain healthy goat populations and prevent a potential global economic crash among goat farming. The most common way to inactivate CAEV is to perform heat treatment of colostrum however this may disrupt the anti-viral effects that colostrum naturally maintains. The Trujillo lab sets out to find better alternatives, if any, to treat the colostrum, or if the colostrum needs treated to kill CAEV at all. Studies done in lab have suggested that colostrum exhibits a very high efficiency of inactivating CAEV on its own and may not need treatment to pass on immunity. We test different strains of virus on colostrum and calculate a titer that will hopefully help us determine how effective colostrum is at inactivating CAEV and we also will perform a test by challenging live kids to determine the outcome.</p>