New approaches to the development of live attenuated rabies vaccines.
Publication/Presentation Date
4-1-2002
Abstract
In the United States, extensive reservoirs of the rabies virus exist in many diverse wild animal species, which continue to pose a serious risk of lethal infection of humans and cause an economic burden exceeding $1 billion annually. Previous experience with rabies control in foxes in Europe has clearly demonstrated that oral immunization with live vaccines is the only practical approach to eradicate rabies in free-ranging animals. However, unlike Europe where vulpine rabies was the only major reservoir, the Americas harbor a variety of species including raccoons, skunks, coyotes, and bats that serve as the primary reservoirs of rabies. Each of these animal reservoirs carries an antigenically distinct virus variant. The currently available modified-live rabies virus vaccines have either safety problems or do not induce sufficient protective immunity in particular wildlife species. Therefore, there is a need for the development of new live rabies virus vaccines that are very safe and highly effective in particular wildlife species. Based on previous observations indicating that the potency of a vaccine is significantly increased if the G protein of the vaccine strain is identical to that of the target virus, we have used a reverse genetics approach to engineer viruses that contain G proteins from virus strains associated with relevant wildlife species. Furthermore, because our recent data also indicate that the pathogenicity of a particular rabies virus strain is inversely proportional to its ability to induce apoptosis and that low-level apoptosis-inducing ability is associated with low anti-viral immune responses, we inserted genes encoding pro-apoptotic proteins to stimulate immunity or otherwise interfere with viral pathogenesis into these recombinant viruses to enhance their efficacy and safety.
Volume
21
Issue
2
First Page
129
Last Page
134
ISSN
1536-8599
Published In/Presented At
Dietzschold, B., & Schnell, M. J. (2002). New approaches to the development of live attenuated rabies vaccines. Hybridoma and hybridomics, 21(2), 129–134. https://doi.org/10.1089/153685902317401735
Disciplines
Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Health and Medical Administration | Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods
PubMedID
12031103
Department(s)
Administration and Leadership
Document Type
Article