About the Authors

Domenico Otranto

domenico.otranto@uniba.it

Affiliation Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy

Filipe Dantas-Torres

Affiliations Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy, Departamento de Imunologia, Centro de Pesquisas Aggeu Magalhães (Fiocruz-PE), Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

Donato de Caprariis

Affiliation Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy

Giancarlo Di Paola

Affiliation Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy

Viviana D. Tarallo

Affiliation Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy

Maria S. Latrofa

Affiliation Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy

Riccardo P. Lia

Affiliation Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy

Giada Annoscia

Affiliation Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy

Edward B. Breitshwerdt

Affiliation Intracellular Pathogens Research Laboratory, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America

Cinzia Cantacessi

Affiliations Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Bari, Valenzano, Italy, Center for Biodiscovery and Molecular Development of Therapeutics, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia

Gioia Capelli

Affiliation Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, Laboratory of Parasitology, Legnaro, Italy

Dorothee Stanneck

Affiliation Bayer Animal Health GmbH, Leverkusen, Germany

Competing Interests

The study was supported by Bayer Animal Health GmbH (Germany) and Dr. Dorothee Stanneck is an employee of Bayer Animal Health GmbH, Leverkusen, Germany. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: DO DS. Performed the experiments: DO FDT DDC GDP VT MSL RPL GA GC DS. Analyzed the data: DO FDT DDC GDP VT MSL RPL GA GC DS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DO GC DS. Wrote the paper: DO FDT DDC EB CC GC DS.