Novel immunogenic baculovirus expressed virus-like particles of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus protect guinea pigs against challenge

Abstract

Vaccination is a well accepted strategy for control of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in endemic countries. Currently, chemically inactivated virus antigens are used for preparation of FMD vaccine. To develop a non-infectious and safe recombinant vaccine, we expressed structural polypeptide of FMDV (O/IND/R2/75) using baculovirus expression system. We show that inclusion of mutated viral 3C protease in frame with the polypeptide (P1-2A), enhanced the yield of structural proteins. The structural proteins retained antigenicity and assembled into empty virus-like particles (VLPs). Immunization of guinea pigs with purified fractions of the VLPs resulted in humoral and cell mediated immune response by 4weeks. The VLPs elicited comparable humoral immune response and relatively higher cell mediated immune response, when compared to conventional vaccine in guinea pigs. Further, up to 70% of the VLP immunized guinea pigs were protected against challenge with homologous guinea pig adapted virus. Our results highlight the application of recombinant FMDV VLPs in FMD vaccination.