| This dissertation describes the work performed, primarily for the development of a porcine mucosal vaccine against Foot-and-mouth disease virus. Here we evaluate different peptide based vaccines as well as different adjuvants for their capacity to induce both systemic, as well as mucosal immunity in swine, when administered intransally. We also attempt to describe a method of vaccine design based on driving immune responses away from epitopes responsible for type-specificity, and towards more conserved viral epitopes. In the work we determine that peptide vaccination coadministered with adjuvants through the intranasal route of swine, can induce effective anti-peptide responses. We also determine that detoxified mucosal adjuvants, with reduced or abrogated ADP ribosylation activity are capable of adjuvanting immune responses similar to native holotoxins. Finally we show that driving immune responses towards sub-dominant epitopes is possible through substitutions of the type-specific, immunodominant epitopes. |
