Continuous porcine kidney cell line constitutively expressing bovine αVβ6 integrin with increased susceptibility to foot and mouth disease virus

Foot and out disease virus (FMDV) is worldwide problem. Rapid isolation, serotyping and vaccine matching of FMDV from infected animals is critical to enable the implementation of effective vaccination programs and to stop the spread of infection during outbreaks. Current virus isolation protocols use primary cells, known to be susceptible to FMDV, or baby hamster kidney cells (BHK-21) and other cell lines that are not highly sensitive to some strains of FMDV. The αVβ6 integrin is a principal receptor for FMDV. We therefore transduced the porcine kidney cell line, LFBK, to stably express both the αV and β6 bovine integrin subunits. The LFBK-αVβ6 cell line showed both β6 expression and enhanced susceptibility to FMDV infection for at least 100 cell passages. LFBK-αVβ6 cells are highly sensitive for detecting all serotypes of FMDV from experimentally infected animals, including the porcinophillic strain O/TAW/97 and are thus a sensitive tool for FMDV isolation.