The transient expression of coat protein of Foot and Mouth DiseaseVirus (FMDV) in spinach (Spinacia oleracea) using Agroinfiltration

Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is a very dangerous livestock disease which causes a serious loss in theproduction of milk and meat. Therefore, producing an effective recombinant subunit vaccine virus thisdisease is of great importance. Transient gene expression is a valuable tool to reach rapid and acceptablerecombinant vaccine. An Agrobacterium-mediated transient gene expression assay was carried out inspinach (Spinacia oleracea) leaves for expression of a chimeric gene encoding a part of capsid protein ofFoot and Mouth Disease virus called VP1. The plant leaves were transformed via agroinfiltrationprocedure. The presence of foreign gene and its expression in transformed plants were confirmed throughpolymerase chain reaction (PCR), real time PCR, protein Dot blot and ELISA. The results obtained in thisexamination showed quite a high level of gene expression in spinach leaves, showing that transient geneexpression can be applied as an effective and time-saving procedure for the production of recombinantproteins. The procedures for transformation, detection of recombinant protein and its application formolecular experiments are described in the study.

Keywords:

Agroinfiltration , FMDV , Recombinant Vaccine , Spinach , VP1