The domestication of cattle
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Modern cattle were domesticated in the Near East from the wild and now extinct aurochs, a place often referred to as the fertile crescent. This event led to a revolution in Agriculture, facilitating a change from nomadic lifestyles to farming. Since then, artificial selection by man has shaped the cow we see today.
However, in relation to disease, fighting infection is not new. Although a lot has changed with the advent of modern farming practices, natural selection has always been shaping the immune response and cattle have evolved multiple mechanisms to counter infection, way before the advent of antibiotics! We believe an evolutionary perspective on immunity can help identify natural mechanisms of fighting infection - perhaps the answers are already out there!? If only cows could talk..... |
Vacca means cow....
Edward Jenner discovered that if you caught the mild Cowpox, you could then no longer catch Smallpox. From this a vaccination was devised which would eventually eradicate Smallpox.
He is now known as the father of vaccination and a giant of immunology - thanks to Blossum his docile Gloucestershire cow (pictured).
Bovine serum
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Early in the 20th century, Ross Harrison developed the first techniques of cell culture in vitro, which were subsequently improved by Burrows and Carrel. Foetal bovine serum (FBS) is used as a supplement for cell culture media, providing an undefined mixture of macromolecules, including hormones, transport proteins, growth factors, lipids, minerals, elements, and detoxifying factors, that maintain cell viability and facilitate cell metabolism, growth, proliferation, and spreading in culture. An estimated 1,800 proteins and more than 4,000 metabolites are present in bovine serum. To this day, almost all cell culture throughout the world uses bovine serum so therefore you could say that the cow helped support all the discoveries made in vitro to date!
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Cows kick allergies
Large animal models of human disease
The bovine model has been used to help us understand many physiological processes of interest in human medicine - including reproduction.
Furthermore, the immune system of a cow shares many similarities with that of humans and which aid their use as a model for Respiratory disease as well as Tuberculosis.
Some of the evolutionary differences that have arisen since we last shared a common ancestor, like expansions in specific genes and peptides, could be harnessed to benefit both species.
Cows help in fight against Covid-19
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Cows produce a lot of antibodies - one of the attributes that has made them attractive to researchers to produce new weapons against the virus that causes Covid-19 in humans - a true example of One Health in action!
Bovine antibodies are also unusual in having exceptionally long heavy chain regions which can reach >70 amino acids in length. These regions are thought to have the ability to penetrate the glycan shield of the viral spike proteins which means these antibodies could be powerful weapons to harness for human viral infections. |