A Review: Immunological Approaches In Animal Fertility

Animal fertility is very important when we are concerned about dairy farmers, which can be modulated by some of immunological approaches. This approach uses antigen or antibody in required dose to manipulate fertility by increasing the innate immunological reactions. These approaches can be used for either immuno-enhancement or immuno-suppression with several hormones like GnRH, LH, Inhibin, Androstenedione, etc. As such hormones does not induce immunogenicity, for reliable production of antibodies, the peptide has to be first conjugated to a carrier immunogenic protein molecule. Some of the examples are like Inhibin vaccination, Fecundin® vaccine against androstenedione, Lymphocyte immunization therapy (LIT)- an effective anti-abortion method. Hormones like estrogen, PGF2α; E.coli Lipopolysaccharide, serum, plasma, hyper-immune plasma, polymorphonuclear (PMN) extracts, mycobacterial cell wall extract, etc are some of immunomodulators can be used as an alternative therapy for the treatment of uterine infections which activates the natural defense mechanisms in the uterus. In immuno-contraception GnRH vaccine, Porcine Zona Protein (PZP) vaccines are some of the examples. These are helpful in reducing the aggressive behavior of beef bulls and rams, reduces the boar taint and unexpected pregnancies, blocking the fertilization in different species by blocking the binding of zona pellucida and sperm membrane. Immunological approaches are helpful in both reducing and increasing fertility effectively.