Building collaborations for research on cattle fever tick in Mexico

The Building for Animal Infectomics (NINFA in Spanish) was built in 2013. It is located in the state of Queretaro, in Mexico. It has a capacity to contain up to 20 bovines in separate pens indoors and it also has 10 large outdoor pens for up to 6 bovines each, all provided with a crowding pen, a chute and a cattle scale. We keep four species of ticks: a Mexican strain of R. microplus, R. sanguineus, Amblyomma mixtum, and a USA R. annulatus strain. Regularly, we also maintain other species of ticks like, A. immitator, and Dermacentor nitens, all from field isolates. We routinely obtain field isolates of Babesia bovis and B. bigemina from R. microplus ticks collected in endemic states in Mexico by feeding the infected larvae on susceptible cattle. We also keep laboratory strains of B. bovis, B. bigemina and Anaplasma marginale in liquid nitrogen and perform infection experiments in splenectomized cattle on a regular basis. We conduct immunization trials in cattle and rabbits for antibody production and for humoral and cellular immune response evaluation. We have used recombinant and synthetic peptides for the immunizations combined with different types of commercial adjuvants. We have conducted field trips to collect R. microplus from distinct states in Mexico. All protocols must be reviewed and approved by the University Bioethics Committee before the start of each project. The NINFA was built following the guidelines of “The European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes."