Promising MS2 mediated virus-like particle vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease

•We generated a recombinant VLP vaccine against FMDV.•VLP can produce high neutralizing antibody against FMDV.•The enhanced protection effect was demonstrated in pigs, mice and guinea pigs. Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has caused severe economic losses to millions of farmers worldwide. In this work, the coding genes of 141–160 epitope peptide (EP141–160) of VP1 were inserted into the coat protein (CP) genes of MS2 in prokaryotic expression vector, and the recombinant protein self-assembled into virus-like particles (VLP). Results showed that the CP–EP141–160 VLP had a strong immunoreaction with the FMD virus (FMDV) antigen in vitro, and also had an effective immune response in mice. Further virus challenge tests were carried out on guinea pigs and swine, high-titer neutralizing antibodies were produced and the CP–EP141–160 VLP vaccine could protect most of the animals against FMDV.