Vaccination of calves with Bacille Calmette Guerin increased the frequency but did not affect aggregation or clustering of natural killer cells in draining lymph nodes.

Introduction: Natural killer (NK) cells are central to innate immune responses but they also influence adaptive immunity. Evidence suggests that NK cells are involved in protective immune responses induced by the Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG) vaccine. In cattle, vaccination with BCG provides significant protection against infection with Materials and Methods: Calves were either not vaccinated, vaccinated with BCG once, or were re-vaccinated. The frequency and localization of NK cells in draining LN was examined by immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence, and statistical analyses of imaging outputs were performed. Results: While increased numbers of NK cells were found in BCG-draining LN, there were no significant alterations in location, nor the clustering or aggregation of NK cells. Re-vaccination with BCG had little impact on NK cell numbers or location. Conclusion: BCG vaccination induced changes in NK cell frequency in bovine LN. Further studies of NK cell function and co-localization with subsets of DC and T cells will be important to define the roles of these cells in the induction of protective immunity in bTB.