Cattle as Experimental Model to Study Immunopathogenesis of Tuberculosis

Various animal models are used to study the immunology, genetics and molecular biology of Tuberculosis (TB) as well as for testing the new vaccines and drugs. Mice are widely used to study the immunology of chronic TB infection, while guinea pigs are used for aerosol TB infection and rabbits are used to study the lung cavitations. Cattle are natural host to Mycobacterium bovis infection, which act as a connecting link between the small laboratory animals and human counterparts for testing the vaccine efficacy. By using cattle as an experimental model, the disease outcome is understood through natural infection with M. bovis and a comparison can be made with M. tuberculosis infection. In this manuscript, the utility of cattle in understanding the progression of disease and the immunological correlates to evaluate the protective efficacy of vaccines are described.