TY - JOUR TI - Transgenic shRNA pigs reduce susceptibility to foot and mouth disease virus infection AU - Hu, Shengwei AU - Qiao, Jun AU - Fu, Qiang AU - Chen, Chuangfu AU - Ni, Wei AU - Wujiafu, Sai AU - Ma, Shiwei AU - Zhang, Hui AU - Sheng, Jingliang AU - Wang, Pengyan AU - Wang, Dawei AU - Huang, Jiong AU - Cao, Lijuan AU - Ouyang, Hongsheng A2 - Goff, Stephen P VL - 4 PY - 2015 DA - 2015/06/19 SP - e06951 C1 - eLife 2015;4:e06951 DO - 10.7554/eLife.06951 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06951 AB - Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is an economically devastating viral disease leading to a substantial loss to the swine industry worldwide. A novel alternative strategy is to develop pigs that are genetically resistant to infection. Here, we produce transgenic (TG) pigs that constitutively expressed FMDV-specific short interfering RNA (siRNA) derived from small hairpin RNA (shRNA). In vitro challenge of TG fibroblasts showed the shRNA suppressed viral growth. TG and non-TG pigs were challenged by intramuscular injection with 100 LD50 of FMDV. High fever, severe clinical signs of foot-and-mouth disease and typical histopathological changes were observed in all of the non-TG pigs but in none of the high-siRNA pigs. Our results show that TG shRNA can provide a viable tool for producing animals with enhanced resistance to FMDV. KW - FMDV KW - transgenic pig KW - RNAi JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -