Nucleotide Sequence of the P1 Region of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus Strain O1 Caseros

It has been shown that variation of antigenic site I in VP1 of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) plays an important role in the antigenic diversification of this virus. However, the O1 Campos strain is able to efficiently cross-protect cattle against the O1 Caseros strain, despite having a different sequence in the site I. In this paper we report and compare the P1 coding region for the capsid proteins of FMDV O1 Caseros and O1 Campos. The deduced amino acid sequence showed a total of 31 amino acid differences. Eight of them are located in surface-exposed loops that have been implicated in antigenic sites. This study should help to identify additional sites to be considered in the development of a new generation of FMDV vaccines.