Immunization of salmonids against Yersinia ruckeri: significance of humoral immunity and cross protection between serotypes

Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) were immunized with bacterins containing either Serotype 1 or 2 isolates of Yersinia ruckeri to determine the relative degree of cross-protection afforded when the fish were challenged with the homologous or heterologous serotype. While fish immunized with pH-lysed bacterins produced highly specific agglutinins that did not cross-react with antigens derived from a heterologous serotype of Y. ruckeri all fish were protected against experimental challenge, regardless of which serotype was used for bacterin production and experimental challenge. Other experiments indicated that brook trout injected intraperitoneally with highly specific antibodies could not be passively immunized against experimental challenge.