In vitro synthesis of foot-and-mouth disease virus specific antibodies by porcine leukocytes.

We have characterized the in vitro secondary antibody response to FMDV of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from immunized pigs. The results obtained indicated that primed swine leukocytes can support an in vitro T-B cell cooperation which is functional and leads to the production of viral specific antibodies. The response was shown to be independent of viral replication, being induced by both infective and inactivated virus as well as by recombinant polypeptides VP1 and VP3. In all cases, concentration of PBMC supernatants allowed the detection of viral-specific IgG antibodies by ELISA. Significant titers of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) specific neutralizing antibodies were detected in concentrated supernatants after stimulation with either infective or inactivated whole virus, whereas no neutralizing activity was found in supernatants from PBMC responding to individual capsid polypeptides. The titers of IgG1 and IgG2 were similar for PBMC incubated with viruses, while IgG2 predominated when VP1 or VP3 were used as stimulators. In addition, significant titers of IFN-gamma were detected in supernatants of PBMC stimulated with infectious or chemically inactivated FMDV.