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To develop a strategy of differentiating infected from vaccinated animals (DIVA) with foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV), a short (27aa) peptide containing three conserved linear B cell epitopes of the FMDV 3B nonstructural protein was designed. This novel BF peptide was synthesized using a gene splicing by overlap extension protocol with preferred codons for Escherichia coli. The resultant eight tandem repeat multimer (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 16, 24, and 32BF) were expressed as soluble fusion proteins in E. coli. An indirect ELISA was developed based on the recombinant 8BF protein with the aim of specifically distinguishing antibodies induced by FMDV infection but not those induced by vaccination. Using the cut-off value of 0.3, the sensitivity of the assay was 96.8% and the specificities for naive and vaccinated cattle were 99.8 and 99.0%, respectively. The performance of the newly developed epitope-based ELISA was compared with three commercial NSP ELISA kits. The 8BF-ELISA appears to be a promising DIVA test for FMD control and eradication.

Duck hepatitis A virus 3 (DHAV-3), the only member of the novel genus Avihepatovirus, in the family Picornaviridae, can cause significant economic losses for duck farms in China. Reports on the pathogenicity and the antiviral molecular mechanisms of the lethal DHAV-3 strain in ducklings are inadequate and remain poorly understood. We conducted global gene expression profiling and screened differentially expressed genes (DEG) of duckling liver tissues infected with lethal DHAV-3. There were 1643 DEG and 8979 DEG when compared with mock ducklings at 12 hours post-infection (hpi) and at 48 hpi, respectively. Gene pathway analysis of DEG highlighted mainly biological processes involved in metabolic pathways, host immune responses, and viral invasion. The results may provide valuable information for us to explore the pathogenicity of the virulent DHAV-3 strain and to improve our understanding of host–virus interactions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13567-018-0545-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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