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Anti-Viral Protection Against FMD (with Plum Island Animal Disease Center)

Standard vaccines for FMD require up to 10 days before becoming effective, creating an immunity gap during which livestock remain vulnerable to one of the most contagious of viral diseases. A new antiviral from the FAZD Center promotes “natural killer cells” that attack the FMD virus, providing protection within three days. Research in this area contributes to vaccine development at Plum Island Animal Disease Center. Vaccine modulation rationales for more rapid protective immunity were developed and tested in challenge studies at Plum Island. These studies confirmed significant increases in NK activity against FMDV infected cells to accelerate immunity.

Mark EstesPrincipal Investigator: D. Mark Estes, University of Texas Medical Branch. Director of Immunology, Institute for Human Infections and Immunity, Senior Scientist Sealy Center for Vaccine Development is a molecular and cellular immunologist with interests in immunoregulation in infection and cancer. Published research.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious disease of cloven-hoofed animals. Immunological knowledge to assess more rapid acting vaccines against FMDV is presently limited. We examined the reactivity of swine and cattle NK cells following infection for their capability to express intracellular perforin, to kill a human tumor cell line target in vitro, and to secret IFN gamma. The cytotoxicity of NK cells from non-infected animals against the K562 cells is low with baseline levels at 5–15% in swine and 15–20% in cattle. Stimulation with rhIL-2 or rhIL-12 plus rhIL-15, increased the lytic activity against K562 cells. Infection with FMDV inhibited swine NK cell lytic activity but did not significantly increase IFN gamma secretion during the acute infection. Perforin expression increased but this did not correlate with the killing capability of the swine NK cells. Infection of cattle with FMDV initially activated the NK cells to increase target cell lysis. NK cell IFN gamma secretion and perforin expression were slightly elevated upon infection and coincided with the lytic activity in cattle. These results are a further indication of immune evasion by FMDV by inhibiting or limiting NK cell function. The potential to manipulate the innate immune response to block this evasion is discussed in the context of designing rapid acting vaccines for foot-and-mouth disease.