On the stability of sequences inserted into viral genomes

Willemsen, Anouk; Zwart, Mark P

Although live attenuated vaccines have substantially reduced rabies prevalence after oral-vaccination campaigns were conducted (Lafay et al. 1994; MacInnes et al. 2001) , such live vaccines are not efficacious in all rabies vector species. As an alternative, recombinant human adenovirus vaccine vectors expressing the rabies glycoprotein have been developed. The fitness of a replication-competent human adenovirus expressing the rabies glycoprotein was similar to that of the wild-type virus, as tested in vitro (Knowles et al. 2009 ). Moreover, the inserted rabies virus gene was stable during both in vivo and in vitro passaging (Knowles et al. 2009 ), demonstrating the potential of this recombinant vaccine vector as an effective alternative.