USDA scientists are using proteins called interferons to combat foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). These proteins kill or stop viruses from growing and reproducing.
Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Foreign Animal Disease Research Unit, located at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center at Orient Point, New York, have demonstrated that interferons can be used to protect animals immediately against FMD infection.This rapid protection gives vaccines time to induce the animal's immune response needed to fight the disease, according to the October issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
Interferons consist of three families: type I (alpha-beta), type II (gamma), and type III (lambda).
ARS microbiologist Teresa de los Santos, computational biologist James Zhu, and retired ARS chemist Marvin Grubman have identified a type III interferon that rapidly protects cattle against FMD virus as early as one day after vaccination.
In laboratory tests, disease was significantly delayed in animals exposed to FMD virus after previously being treated with bovine type III interferon, as compared to a control group that did not receive treatment.
In other experiments, the type III interferon treatment was found to be even more protective in cows that were naturally exposed to FMD, according to de los Santos. PD
—From ARS news release
