Key result
The virus-like particle-based liquid phase blocking ELISA demonstrated excellent agreement with conventional LPBE (ICC 0.904) and stronger correlation with neutralization tests for evaluating FMD vaccines.
Why the study?
Replacing inactivated foot-and-mouth disease viruses with virus-like particles in liquid-phase blocking ELISA could provide a more economical and biosafety-risk-free solution for serodiagnosis and vaccine evaluation.
Effect estimate: ICC 0.904 (95% CI 0.867-0.928)
p-value: p=<0.001
A novel VLP-based ELISA provides a safe, economical, and highly accurate alternative to conventional inactivated virus assays for evaluating foot-and-mouth disease vaccine efficacy.
Virus-like particles (VLPs), which closely mimic the structural and antigenic properties of native foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virions while lacking infectious genetic material, provide a more economical solution by replacing inactivated viruses in liquid-phase blocking ELISA (LPBE) testing for FMD serodiagnosis and vaccine evaluation. In this study, a novel LPBE was developed by replacing inactivated antigens with serotype O foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) VLPs expressed in Escherichia coli. Based on evaluation of sensitivity and specificity, its correlation with virus neutralization test (VNT) results in immunized animal sera, as well as the feasibility and broad applicability for clinical serum sample detection, was further analyzed. Validation showed that VLPs-LPBE achieved high specificity (98.75%) and sensitivity (97.02%). Notably, in quantifying VLP-induced antibodies, the correlation with VNT results (R2 = 0.6809, P < 0.0001) was significantly stronger than that of commercial-LPBE. Blind evaluation of 853 clinical serum samples from vaccinated subjects demonstrated excellent agreement between VLPs-LPBE and conventional LPBE, with a kappa coefficient (κ) of 0.896, an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.904, and the concordance rate of 95.8%. These results confirm the clinical reliability and applicability for serological monitoring. In conclusion, VLPs-LPBE provides a safe, economical, and reliable alternative method for the evaluation of FMD vaccines. It eliminates the biosafety risks associated with the handling of inactivated viruses while maintaining compatibility with existing monitoring workflows. • VLPs-based ELISA safely replaces inactivated virus, reducing costs while maintaining diagnostic accuracy. • Stronger correlation with neutralization tests enhances VLPs-vaccine evaluation reliability vs. commercial kits. • High clinical concordance validates workflow compatibility for large-scale serological monitoring.
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Zhang et al. (2025) studied Foot-and-mouth disease (n=1,627). Virus-like particle-based liquid phase blocking ELISA (VLPs-LPBE) vs. Commercial LPBE was evaluated on Concordance with commercial LPBE in clinical serum samples (ICC 0.904, 95% CI 0.867-0.928, p=<0.001). The virus-like particle-based liquid phase blocking ELISA demonstrated excellent agreement with conventional LPBE (ICC 0.904) and stronger correlation with neutralization tests for evaluating FMD vaccines.
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