Method of Preventing or Reducing Virus Transmission in Animals

摘要

The subject invention provides materials and methods for improving animal resistance to infection by intestinal viruses. This is accomplished by interfering with intestinal virus uptake employing methods that (1) reduce virus binding to receptors in the intestinal lining; (2) introduce decoy receptors expressed in the mammary gland leading to decoy secretion in milk; (3) produce decoy receptors by a variety of protein synthesis methods to provide decoy receptors to non-genetically modified animals, including humans; and/or (4) administer a vector to a non-genetically modified animal which vector has been genetically modified to produce a decoy receptor.

主权项

1. A nucleic acid molecule comprising:
an exogenous, inhibitory polycistronic RNA coding sequence, operably linked to a promoter, wherein the exogenous inhibitory polycistronic RNA coding sequence encodes multiple inhibitory RNA molecules that interfere with the expression of an endogenous virus infection-susceptible receptor and thereby reduce and/or prevent expression of the endogenous virus infection-susceptible receptor; and/or an exogenous nucleic acid molecule, operably linked to a promoter, wherein the exogenous nucleic acid molecule encodes a receptor derived from another species than the animal and wherein the receptor of the other species is resistant to virus infection; and/or an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that encodes the extracellular domain of an endogenous virus infection-susceptible receptor, wherein expression of the exogenous, extracellular domain-encoding nucleic acid sequence leads to secretion of decoy receptors.