About the Authors

Rahel Kasonta

Affiliation Division of Veterinary Medicine, Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Langen, Germany

Mark Holsteg

Affiliation Landwirtschaftskammer Nordrhein-Westfalen, Referat 34 Tiergesundheit, Bonn, Germany

Karin Duchow

Affiliation Division of Veterinary Medicine, Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Langen, Germany

James W. Dekker

Affiliation Fonterra Research and Development Centre, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Klaus Cussler

Affiliation Division of Veterinary Medicine, Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Langen, Germany

Justin G. Bendall

Affiliation Fonterra Research and Development Centre, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Max Bastian

basma@pei.de

Affiliation Division of Veterinary Medicine, Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Langen, Germany

Competing Interests

JD and JB are employees of the FONTERRA Research and Development Center. The center belongs to FONTERRA ltd., the dairy company that manufactures and produces colostrum powder for human consumption. All other authors have no competing interests. RK, KD, KC and MB are employed by the independent governmental German Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RK MH JD JB MB. Performed the experiments: RK MB. Analyzed the data: RK MH JD JB MB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MH JD JB. Wrote the paper: RK KD KC JB MB.