DNA IMMUNIZATION WITH FMDV MINIGENES IN PIGS: FROM EXACERBATION TO PARTIALPROTECTION

摘要

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is one ot the most devastating diseases for animal health. Animals affected comprise several species of cloven-hoofed wild and farm animals, including cattle, sheep, and pigs, which are a main threat because of their capability of amplification and dissemination (1). Despite several attempts to design new vaccines, there are no yet alternatives to the classical FMDV vaccines (chemically inactivated). Previous work from our lab with DNA vaccines expressing FMDV epitopes alone and fused to a strong signal peptide showed to be very promising by using a mouse model (2). Here we have extended these results to pigs, natural host for FMDV.