The Potential Role of Antimicrobial Proteins in the Treatment of Bovine Mastitis

Abstract

The intramammary administration of antibiotics is the most common method used to treat bovine mastitis (1). Antibiotic treatment during lactation has a low cure rate for many mastitis pathogens, and the loss of milk due to drug residues results in a poor cost-benefit ratio for most antibiotic therapy during lactation (2). In addition, there is an increasing concern over the presence of drug residues in milk (3), which has led to the search for alternatives the classical antibiotic approach (4,5,6,7,8). The bacteriocins, lysostaphin (9) and nisin (10), are effective toward mastitis pathogens. These are nontoxic proteins, digested and inactivated by intestinal enzymes, and thus, are potentially less hazardous than the antibiotics currently available for use in dairy cattle (6).

This study examined the efficacy of several lysostaphin and nisin combinations for the treatment of experimental bovine mastitis infections by Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, and Streptococcus uberis.

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