Induction of a protective antibody response to foot amd mouth disease virus in mice either orally or parentally immunized with alfalfa transgenic plants expressing the viral structural protein VP1

WIGDOROVITZ ANDRES; CARRILLO CONSUELO; DUS SANTOS MARÍA JOSE; TRONO KARINA; PERALTA ANDREA; GOMEZ CRISTINA; RIOS RAUL; FRANZONE PASCUAL; SADIR ANA; ESCRIBANO JOSÉ; BORCA MANUEL

Chicago, Estados Unidos

Congreso; 79th Anual Meeting of the Conference of research Workers in Animals Disease; 1998

The utilization of transgenic plants expressing recombinant antigens to be used in the formulation of experimental immunogens have been recently communicated. We report here the development of transgenic plants of alfalfa expressing the structural protein VP1 of Foot and Mouth Disease Virus (FMDV). The presence of the transgenes in the plants was confirmed by PCR and their specific transcriptionwas demostrated by RT-PCR. Mice parenterally immunized using leaf extracts or receiving in their diet freshly leaves from transgenic plants developed a virus specific immune response. Animals immunized by either way elicited a specific antibody response to a syntethic peptide representing amino acid residues 135-160 of VP1, to the structural protein VP1 and to intact FMDV particles. Additionally, the immunized mice were protected against the experimental challenge with the virus. We believe this is the first report demostrating the induction of a protective systemic antibody response in animals fed with transgenic plants expressing a viral antigen. These results support the feasibility to produce edible vaccines in transgenic forage plants, such alfalfa, commonly used in the diet of domestic animals even for those antigens where a systemic immune response is required