Researchers Test Pig Virus Protein to Produce Vaccine

July 2, 2014 — 

Saskatchewan and Ontario researchers have begun testing potential new vaccines they hope will counter the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus.

In Saskatoon, the associate director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization said the evaluation will use intentionally infected piglets housed in the Level 3 containment facilities at the International Vaccine Centre (Intervac).

VIDO-Intervac is also co-operating with Rima Menassa, who is developing vaccines at the Southern Crop Protection and Food Research Centre in London.

Like the scientists in Saskatoon, Menassa began her vaccine program in February, soon after the disease was identified in Ontario.

She is working with the spike protein, which forms the hair-like appendages that are part of the virus.

The idea is to vaccinate pregnant sows to produce an immune response to the virus. The sows can then pass on the protection to their young through their milk.

Menassa’s program uses a non-transgenic technique known as transient expression to reproduce the spike protein, or sections of it, in the leaves of a dwarf tobacco species.

So far, she and her team have made two of the protein’s sections. Protein genes are first put into an agrobacterium solution. The solution is introduced to the leaves of the tobacco plants, where the genes are expressed to produce the proteins.

The plants are then harvested in a week or two and undergo a multi-step purification process to extract the protein.

The vaccine will then be tested at Intervac, hopefully before the end of June, to determine if an immune response was triggered and to check for side effects. Menassa hopes field testing could begin on Ontario farms as early as September.

Source: The Western Producer, Jun. 27th, 2014 by Jeffrey Carter