Our Team, Immunity and Alternatives to Antibiotics, focuses its research on mammary gland infections of dairy cattle. These infections, caused by several bacteria species, among which some can present antibiotic resistance, induce major economical losses and constitute a significant part of the total consumption of antibiotics in livestock.
To better control these infections, our goals are to find new solutions relying on vaccine development and immune-stimulation. In line with this, we started a global project aiming at characterizing the immune system residing in the mammary gland in lactation, using Single Cell RNASeq approach. Our results highlight the existence of several populations of macrophages some of which are intimately associated to lactiferous ducts: ductal macrophages that could possibly be dedicated to immunosurveillance of the mammary tissue.