Pan-Serotype Diagnostic for Foot-and-Mouth Disease Using the Consensus Antigen of Nonstructural Protein 3B

Area of Science:

• Veterinary Virology
• Immunodiagnostics
• Molecular Biology

Background:

• Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) poses a significant threat to livestock globally.
• Accurate and broad-spectrum diagnostic tests are crucial for FMDV control.
• Existing diagnostics may not cover all seven FMDV serotypes effectively.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a consensus amino acid sequence for the FMDV nonstructural protein 3B.
• To create a pan-serotype diagnostic test capable of detecting antibodies against all seven FMDV serotypes.
• To evaluate the diagnostic performance of the developed assay.

Main Methods:

• Multiple-sequence alignment of 125 FMDV 3B protein sequences to determine consensus.
• Expression and purification of the consensus 3B (c3B) protein as a recombinant fusion protein (MBP-c3B).
• Development of a competition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (cELISA) using MBP-c3B as the antigen.

Main Results:

• The consensus 3B (c3B) protein was successfully expressed and purified.
• The cELISA demonstrated high diagnostic performance: 87.22% sensitivity and 93.15% specificity.
• The MBP-c3B antigen showed reactivity with sera from all seven FMDV serotypes, confirming pan-serotype capability.

Conclusions:

• The developed consensus antigen (c3B) is a promising bioreagent for FMDV diagnostics.
• The competition ELISA using c3B shows potential as a pan-serotype diagnostic test for FMDV infection.
• This approach offers a unified strategy for detecting FMDV across all its serotypes.