Improved control of endemic foot-and-mouth disease by development of virus like particle vaccines

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious, acute viral disease of clovenhoofed, domesticated and wild animals. The disease is much feared as the virus can spread extremely rapidly, has the potential to cause enormous economic losses and is the single most important constraint to international trade in livestock and animal products. Current vaccines are made of inactivated virus and induce a protective antibody response but only for a short duration and only against viruses that are closely related to the vaccine strain. We have developed methods to produce stabilised FMDV capsids in insect cells which do not require expensive high disease containment facilities. This new capsid production platform will allow modification of the structures to enhance the short duration of immunity and the narrow spectrum of the protective immune responses. We will identify methods to enhance the cellular immune responses to the capsids and so stimulate prolonged antibody responses. In addition we will establish which parts of the viral capsid structure are the most important to use in new vaccines to protect against a wide range of viruses. Once identified these common structures can be engineered for enhanced prominence in new vaccines designed to induce widely cross protective responses.