ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Comparative Immunology
This article is part of the Research TopicImmunology of Farm Animals in the Context of One HealthView all 3 articles
Characterization of T cell responses against Fusobacterium necrophorum naturally-induced foot rot in dairy cows
Provisionally accepted
- Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China
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Bovine foot rot, an infectious disease caused by Fusobacterium necrophorum, leads to significant economic losses in the dairy farming. Research on bovine foot rot has primarily focused on the isolation and identification of the pathogen, as well as treatment methods. However, few studies have reported on the host's immunological characteristics following infection. In this study, we employed a eight-color flow cytometry panel to characterize T-cell immune responses in dairy cows after infection by the F. necrophorum naturally-induced foot rot. We found that dairy cows with natural F. necrophorum-induced foot rot exhibited significantly increased percentages of NK cells, NKT cells, CD4+CD8- (helper) T cells, and CD4+CD8+ (double-positive) T cells compared to healthy cattle, while the proportion of WC1+ γδ T cells remained unchanged. However, the frequency of CD44High expressing cells was significantly elevated across all these T-cell subsets, suggesting their differential activation upon host infection with F. necrophorum. Compared with healthy cows, those with natural F. necrophorum-induced foot rot showed a significant increase in the percentages of effector memory T cells within NK and CD4+CD8+ T cell populations, and of central memory T cells within CD4+CD8+ and CD4+CD8-T cells, respectively. Our results, for the first time, revealed a potential role of CD4+CD8+ T cells and NK cells in the defense of F. necrophorum naturally-induced foot rot in cows.
Keywords: Cow4, flow cytometry5, Foot rot3, Fusobacterium necrophorum2, T cell response1
Received: 27 Sep 2025; Accepted: 10 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yi, Zhang, Yu, Zhang, Ye, Yang and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhipeng Zhang
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