Cell surface display of VP1 of foot-and-mouth disease virus on Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Background: Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly infectious disease that mainly affects cloven-hoofed animals. The rapid spread of this disease hinders the success of control measures. This necessitates the urgent development of a vaccine to ensure the safe rearing of affected animals. However, traditional vaccines have some drawbacks including partial protection against persistent infection and a lack of cross-protection against different strains. Results: We developed an oral vaccine that targets VP1, the major immunogenic protein of the causative FMD virus (FMDV). We expressed this protein using the surface display method and subsequently analyzed its immune efficacy. Western blot analysis and confocal imaging confirmed that our constructs effectively expressed VP1 on the surface of yeast cells. However, the expression of surface-displayed VP1 was substantially lower than that of intracellular VP1. The immune response of mice fed with cells expressing surface-displayed VP1 was greater than that of mice fed with an equal number of cells expressing intracellular VP1. Conclusions: Our study indicates that yeast surface expressed VP1 elicits a superior immune response against FMDV than intracellularly expressed VP1 for immune response against FMDV, which offers a potential breakthrough in the effort to provide a simple and highly effective oral vaccine.