Generation of acid resistant virus like particles of vaccine strains of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV).

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a contagious viral disease affecting cloven hoofed livestock. Insect cell expressed virus like particles (VLPs) are potential alternative to overcome the limitations of inactivated vaccine. However, at pH < 6.5, virus particles disassociate into pentameric structure resulting in loss of antigenicity. Accordingly, we generated seven mutant VLPs containing mutations in the structural genes of FMDV vaccine strains (N17D and/or H145Y for serotypes O/IND/R2/75 and Asia1/IND/63/72; and H142D for serotype A/IND/40/00) by PCR based site directed mutagenesis. Acid resistant VLPs produced by baculovirus expression system were tested for acid stability at pH 7.5, 6.5, 6.0 and 5.5 followed by reactivity in sandwich-ELISA (s-ELISA), which revealed mutant-1 (N17D) of serotype O and Asia1 retained the antigenicity in s-ELISA even at pH 5.5 as compared to other VLPs and wild-types. Further, the 75S empty capsids obtained in sucrose density gradient, when tested in liquid phase blocking ELISA (LPBE) in comparison to cell culture antigen indicated that the VLPs were stable at acidic pH. Transmission electron microscopy of OM-1 confirmed the intact morphology of the empty VLPs. It is concluded that acid resistant VLPs could be useful for developing new generation vaccine or diagnostic for FMDV.