Active immunization of beef heifers against luteinizing hormone: I. Evaluation of protein carriers and adjuvants on antigenicity of LH.

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate two carrier proteins and nine adjuvants in promoting antibody production in heifers immunized against LH. The anti-LH antibody response was evaluated in heifers immunized against LH conjugated to either ovalbumin or keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) (Exp. 1). In Exp. 2, an LH-ovalbumin conjugate was used to evaluate effectiveness of nine different adjuvants in antibody production. Weekly blood samples were collected from all heifers throughout the 23-wk study to determine LH antibody binding activity. In Exp. 1, heifers immunized with the LH-ovalbumin (LH-oval) conjugate had greater LH antibody binding activities (P less than .001) than those immunized with the LH-KLH conjugate. In Exp. 2, nine groups of heifers were immunized with LH-oval suspended in one of nine adjuvants; a 10th group was immunized against ovalbumin alone (control). Only adjuvants that contained at least 40% oil resulted in LH antibody binding activity that differed (P less than .01) from control. These results show that ovalbumin was a superior carrier protein to KLH in enhancing antibody production; adjuvants with greater than 50% oil were superior to those with less oil in promoting LH antibody production.