The role of non-structural protein 3A of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) on the virulence in cattle has received significant attention. Particularly, a characteristic 10-20 amino acid deletion has been implicated as responsible for virus attenuation in cattle: a 10 amino acid deletion in the naturally occurring, porcinophilic FMDV O1 Taiwanese strain, and an approximately 20 amino acid dele...

The aim of this study was to determine personal hygiene protocols and animal avoidance periods needed to prevent transmission of FMDV (O/TAW/97). Forty-six, 9-week-old barrows free of FMDV were randomly allocated to five treatment groups and a control group. Investigators contacted and sampled FMDV-inoculated pigs for approximately 40 min and then contacted and sampled sentinel pigs after using...

The authors compare the radioactive method of detecting foot and mouth disease virus sequence products with a non-radioactive, silver stain sequencing method. The latter was found to compare favourably to the radioactive technique for detecting such products. The silver stain sequencing method was simple and did not require expensive specialised equipment. This new approach will be particularly...

Clonal populations of foot-and-mouth disease virus have been serially passaged in cell culture to analyse variation in the absence of immune selection at different antigenic sites of the virus. Mutant frequencies at the RNA regions encoding two independent antigenic sites (sites C and D) were more than twentyfold lower than for antigenic site A (the G-H loop of VP1). Correspondingly, fixation o...

Most isolates of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) display a broad host range. Since the late 1990s, the genetic lineage of PanAsia topotype FMDV serotype O has caused epidemics in the Far East, Africa, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and numerous other countries throughout Europe and Asia. In contrast, there are several FMDV isolates that exhibit a more restricted host range. A ...

Laboratory detection of specific foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is routinely carried out by ELISA and RT-PCR. Identification and serotyping of FMDV by ELISA requires polyclonal antibodies raised in rabbits and guinea pigs. The polyclonal antibodies have certain disadvantages such as batch to batch variation, inconsistent yields of antibodies and limited quantity of serum obtained from indi...

The partial retention of the disperse phase in the ultrafiltration of a monodisperse system through an isoporous filter is interpreted on a statistical basis, and a simple expression for the sieve constant is evaluated in terms of the calibrated membrane porosity and the particle size. Curves calculated from this expression are in reasonable agreement with experimental data for the ultrafiltrat...

We have rationally engineered foot-and-mouth disease virus to increase its stability against thermal dissociation into subunits without disrupting the many biological functions needed for its infectivity. Amino acid side chains located near the capsid intersubunit interfaces and either predicted or found to be dispensable for infectivity were replaced by others that could establish new disulfid...

Recombinant single-chain variable fragments (scFvs) of antibodies make it possible to localize antigenic and immunogenic determinants, identify protective epitopes and can be exploited for the design of improved diagnostic tests and vaccines. A neutralizing epitope, as well as other potential antigenic sites of a SAT2 foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) were identified using phage-displayed scF...

Lymphoproliferation against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus was examined using peripheral blood mononuclear cells from vaccinated cattle. Ten weeks after revaccination the optimum conditions for proliferation were obtained with 1 microgram/ml of purified virus after 5 to 6 days in culture. This contrasted with the response at 20 months post-revaccination, when the response required less anti...