Drug – bio-affecting and body treating compositions – Antigen – epitope – or other immunospecific immunoeffector – Virus or component thereof
Reexamination Certificate
2001-06-04
2004-04-13
Housel, James (Department: 1648)
Drug, bio-affecting and body treating compositions
Antigen, epitope, or other immunospecific immunoeffector
Virus or component thereof
C424S204100, C435S005000, C435S007100, C530S350000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06719980
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the structural proteins of the causative agent of Pancreatic Disease in fish, nucleotide sequences encoding said proteins, vaccines comprising said proteins or nucleotide sequences and diagnostic kits comprising said proteins or nucleotide sequences.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Pancreatic Disease (PD) is a serious disease that affects fish, in particular salmonid fish such as wild Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout and the like. The disease causes lesions in the pancreas, including loss of pancreatic exocrine tissue, and fibrosis, cardiac and skeletal muscle myopathies. Outbreaks of PD were first described in 1984 by Munro et al, in Helgoland Meeresuntersuchungen 37:571-586 (1984). PD typically affects the fish post-molts during the first year after they are transferred to sea sites and is reported to spread rapidly among farm fish held in sea cages. Clinical signs include lethargy with a tendency to congregate in cage corners and to fail to maintain a horizontal position, cessation of feeding (anorexia) and significant mortalities (Ferguson et al, J. Fish Disease 9:95-98, 1986). Murphy et al (in J. Fish Disease 15:401-408, 1992) confirmed these observations in a later study, in which it was found that cardiac and skeletal myopathy is exacerbated in fish suffering from PD.
An outbreak of PD in a fish farm can cause growth to be reduced and up to 10 percent of surviving fish may prove to be runt. On Irish fish farms PD causes significant mortality rates of 10 to 60 percent among the young fish during the first year after they are transferred to sea sites (McLoughlin, M., Fish Farmer page 19, March/April 1995). The estimated cost to the Irish industry in terms of loss of production is currently thought to be around £25 million per year. Consequently, there is a great need for a vaccine for the prevention and/or treatment of PD in fish.
EP-A-712926 describes the isolation of the causative agent of PD from tissues of PD affected fish and the identification of the virus as a toga-like virus. To prevent PD infections in fish, the use of attenuated or inactivated PD for vaccination of the fish is accordingly suggested. A drawback in the production of inactivated vaccines from the PD virus described in EP-A-712926 is the slow growth of the virus, in particular on cell cultures, which makes the manufacturing of said vaccines a relatively inefficient process. A further drawback with the inactivated vaccines is the instability of the inactivated virus in the presence of other inactivated pathogens resulting in potency loss. Fish vaccines are generally produced as multivalent vaccines, and significant higher amounts of inactivated virus are required in the multivalent vaccine than would be necessary in a monovalent vaccine to compensate for the loss of potency.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides the means to produce alternative vaccines to prevent infection of fish with PD, in which the above mentioned difficulties are overcome.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5939073 (1999-08-01), McLoughlin et al.
patent: 0 712 926 (1996-05-01), None
patent: 0 712 926 (1996-05-01), None
Schlesinger et al. Togaviridae: The Viruses and Their Replication. In B.N. Fields et al. (ed.), Fields Virology, 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Lippencott-Raven Publishers; 1996: 825-827.*
Houghton, G., “Acquired Protection in Atlantic Salmon Salmo Salar Parr and Post-Smolts Against Pancreas Disease” vol. 18 No. 2, Feb. 24, 1994. p. 109-118.
Nelson, R., et al. “Isolation of a Toga-Like Virus from Farmed Atlantic Salmon Salmo Salar with Pancreas Disease” Diseases of Aquatic Organism. vol. 22, No. 1, May 4, 1995, p. 25-32.
Todd Daniel
Weston Jonathan
Akzo Nobel NV
Foley Shanon
Housel James
Milstead Mark W
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