Replication-dead gammaherpesvirus vaccine protects against acute replication, reactivation from latency, and lethal challenge in mice.

ABSTRACT: Gammaherpesviruses (GHVs) are oncogenic viruses that establish lifelong infections and are significant causes of human morbidity and mortality. While several vaccine strategies to limit GHV infection and disease are in development, there are no FDA-approved vaccines for human GHVs. As a new approach to gammaherpesvirus vaccination, we developed and tested a replication-dead virus (RDV) platform, using murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (MHV68), a well-established mouse model for gammaherpesvirus pathogenesis studies and preclinical therapeutic evaluations. We employed codon-shuffling-based complementation to generate revertant-free RDV lacking expression of the essential replication and transactivator protein (RTA) encoded by ORF50 to arrest viral gene expression early after de novo

SUBMITTER: Bland WA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10557649 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature