Bovine mycoplasmal mastitis from intramammary inoculations of small numbers of Mycoplasma bovis: local and systemic antibody response.

Typical mycoplasma mastitis spread to all four quarters in each of four cows after each cow was inoculated in one quarter with 70 colony-forming units of Mycoplasma bovis. Up to 50 days after inoculation, immunoglobulin (Ig) M was the predominant Ig responsible for serum indirect hemagglutination titers. After 57 days, IgG was predominant. Milk whey indirect hemagglutination titers did not distinguish between quarters resolving the infection and those that did not. Milk whey IgG and IgA concentrations increased in quarters that resolved the infection and in quarters that did not. In the initially inoculated quarters, total daily production of IgG was greater in the quarter resolving the infection than in the three quarters not resolving the infection. Total IgA production was also higher at and after the peak of infection in the quarter resolving the infection than in the quarters that did not.