Construction of recombinant bacmids with immunogenic genes of FMD virus using the Bac-to-Bac system

The Foot and Mouth disease virus belongs to the Picornavirus family and primarily affects to bovine, ovine, porcine and caprine. The virus is divided in seven serotypes, O, A, C, Sat1, Sat2, Sat3 and Asia1. In Latin America, the most prevalent serotypes are O and A, in Ecuador, serotype O is the most common. Currently, the vaccine in use is that of an inactivated virus that has some disadvantages such as a limited immune response, the need for a cold chain to keep the vaccine functional and the need of a great quantity of virus to manufacture it. An alternative to overcome these inactivated vaccine's problems is the creation of subunit vaccines using a recombinant protein expression system, where only the immunogenic components of the pathogen are used. Therefore, this project's main objective is the application of a Bac-to-Bac system for the construction of recombinant baculovirus with the foot and mouth disease virus’ highly immunogenic capsid genes such as VP1, P1-2A and 3C from serotype O. Recombinant baculoviruses were obtained with the VP1 construct and these will be later transfected in insect cells for the expression and analysis of VP1 as a possible candidate for a subunit vaccine.