Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is a very dangerous livestock disease which causes a serious loss in the
production of milk and meat. Therefore, producing an effective recombinant subunit vaccine virus this
disease is of great importance. Transient gene expression is a valuable tool to reach rapid and acceptable
recombinant vaccine. An Agrobacterium-mediated transient gene expression assay was carried out in
spinach (Spinacia oleracea) leaves for expression of a chimeric gene encoding a part of capsid protein of
Foot and Mouth Disease virus called VP1. The plant leaves were transformed via agroinfiltration
procedure. The presence of foreign gene and its expression in transformed plants were confirmed through
polymerase chain reaction (PCR), real time PCR, protein Dot blot and ELISA. The results obtained in this
examination showed quite a high level of gene expression in spinach leaves, showing that transient gene
expression can be applied as an effective and time-saving procedure for the production of recombinant
proteins. The procedures for transformation, detection of recombinant protein and its application for
molecular experiments are described in the study.
