Abstract
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious disease of cloven-hoofed animals. It produces severe economic losses in the livestock industry. Currently available vaccines are based on inactivated FMD virus (FMDV). The use of empty capsids as a subunit vaccine has been reported to be a promising candidate because it avoids the use of virus in the vaccine production and conserves the conformational epitopes of the virus. In this report, we explored transient gene expression (TGE) in serum-free suspension-growing mammalian cells for the production of FMDV recombinant empty capsids as a subunit vaccine. The recombinant proteins produced, assembled into empty capsids and induced protective immune response against viral challenge in mice. Furthermore, they were recognized by anti-FMDV bovine sera. By using this technology, we were able to achieve expression levels that are compatible with the development of a vaccine. Thus, TGE of mammalian cells is an easy to perform, scalable and cost-effective technology for the production of a recombinant subunit vaccine against FMDV.
Publication types
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Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
MeSH terms
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Animals
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Antigens, Viral / immunology
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Blotting, Western
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Capsid / metabolism*
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Cattle
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Cell Proliferation
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Culture Media, Serum-Free / pharmacology*
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Foot-and-Mouth Disease / immunology
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Foot-and-Mouth Disease / prevention & control
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Foot-and-Mouth Disease / virology
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Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus / genetics*
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Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus / growth & development
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Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus / immunology
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Gene Expression / drug effects*
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Genetic Vectors
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Genome, Viral / genetics
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HEK293 Cells
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Humans
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Male
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Mammals / virology*
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Mice, Inbred BALB C
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Recombinant Proteins / metabolism
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Suspensions
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Transfection
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Vaccination
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Virion / metabolism
Substances
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Antigens, Viral
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Culture Media, Serum-Free
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Recombinant Proteins
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Suspensions
Grants and funding
This work was supported by grants PAE-PICT-2001-00044 from Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica, Argentina and PE AESA201721 from Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, Argentina. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.