Research On A Recombinant Epitope Vaccine For Type O Foot-and-mouth Disease

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious disease, which always inflicts cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs. Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is the pathogen that causes this disease. Because of its dangerous infectivity and its impact upon agriculture, it was enlisted as number on the A list of contagious by OIE (Office International Des Epizooties). Among varies of farm animals, cattle, sheep and pigs are all sensitive to the infection of FMDV, among which cattle is the most sensitive one. Cattle and pigs display most serious symptoms while sheep only show very mild sub-clinical infection. Besides the economical loss caused by the death of farm animals, the reduced production of milk and meat during the epidemic will lead to large amount of loss. So the breakout of FMD always leads to the decrease of export and import of farm products of the country and great loss. The FMD breakout in England occurred in 2001, during which half a million animals were sacrificed and direct loss of 1.5 billion pound was caused. And it was showed in an investigation that the income of most of England farmers dropped 70% in recent 5 years.The major route of transmission of FMDV includes pathways through alimentary system, respiratory system, skin or mucosa. FMD may break out anytime of the year, especially at the end of autumn. The epidemic may aggravates during winter and abates in the spring. According to the past record, FMD always break out periodically, which means it may occur in the same region every few years.Foot-and-mouth disease is caused by the infection of Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). FMDV is a member of Aphthovirus genus of Picornaviridae. There are 7 sero-types of FMDV, namely, O, A, C, Southern African Territories 1 (SAT 1), SAT 2, SAT 3 and Asia 1. And there was no cross protection between these types. The genome of...