Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a very deadly and highly contagious disease that occurs in various cloven-hoofed animals. Korea imports vaccines including non-vaccinated serotype for the vaccine bank. The two company vaccines imported from 2019 to 2021 were evaluated through multiple tests based on national standard assay. SN titers for the vaccine of company A were more than 1.5 log10, those of company B vaccine in the geometric mean were at least 1.72. All imported vaccines exceeded the evaluation criteria, and the potency of each vaccine was above its own company standard. Stockpiled vaccines for emergency may help to control non-vaccinated serotypes of FMD outbreak nationally.

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are similar to pathogenic viruses, but because they have no nucleic acid, they have excellent safety and immunogenicity and are used as a good vaccine material. However, in the selection of various structural proteins of pathogenic viruses to form VLPs, all expression systems consume a lot of time in common. Among them, the baculovirus expression system causes additional time consumption to construct the recombinant baculovirus. Therefore, there is a need for a system that can rapidly determine the structural proteins required for effective VLP production. This study aims at solving this problem by constructing a BmNPV inducible expression platform through the construction of vectors induced by BmNPV. The platform was evaluated for overexpression using EGFP. We also confirmed the formation of virus-like particles through overexpression of canine parvovirus structural proteins.

We investigated the effects of two Brucella proteins expressed in a pMAL expression system, RocF and EF-Ts, as subunit vaccines on immune modulation and protective efficacy using a mouse model. Mice vaccinated with MBP-RocF and MBP-EF-Ts displayed increased production of TNF, IFN-, MCP-1, IL-10 and IL-6, and TNF and MCP-1, respectively. Furthermore, mice vaccinated with MBP-EF-Ts showed decreased induction of IFN- and Th2-related cytokines, IL-10 and IL-6. Higher proportions of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were observed in the blood of mice vaccinated with MBP-RocF than in the PBS-vaccinated group, although the increases were not significant. Furthermore, significantly reduced Brucella proliferation in the spleens of the MBP-RocF and MBP-EF-Ts groups were observed, but inflammation of these organs was not attenuated. Overall, these results indicate that RocF and EF-Ts could be potential subunit vaccine candidates against animal brucellosis.

Canine parvovirus (CPV) type 2a (CPV-2a) has recently been identified as the main genotype circulating in the dog population in South Korea. Although CPV vaccines protect domestic dogs from CPV-2 infection, the efficacy of commercial live or inactivated CPV vaccines against CPV-2a has not been reevaluated. In this study, dogs were immunized with one of 7 commercial CPV vaccines (4 modified live and 3 inactivated vaccines) followed by challenge with CPV-2a strain, KV0901 that had been isolated from naturally infected dog in 2009. All dogs vaccinated twice with 4 commercial modified live CPV vaccines were seroconverted (geometric mean HI titer > 190.2) and most of dogs were completely protected against virulent CPV-2a strain infection. The dogs inoculated with 3 commercial inactivated CPV vaccines were also seroconverted and showed a slight loss of appetite and light diarrhea for 4 days after challenge and returned to normal at 5 days post challenge. However, the non-vaccinated dogs revealed the typical clinical signs of CPV infection including haemorrhgic diarrhea. In conclusion, the 4 live CPV vaccines licensed in Korea cross-protected dogs against virulent challenge with CPV-2a and are applicalble to pet dogs for the prevention of CPV infection.