The vaccine efficacy of recombinant duck enteritis virus expressing secreted E with or without PrM proteins of duck tembusu virus

A newly emerged tembusu virus that causes egg-drop has been affecting ducks in China since 2010. Currently, no vaccine is available for this disease. A live attenuated duck enteritis virus (DEV; a herpesvirus) vaccine has been used routinely to control lethal DEV in ducks since the 1960s. Here, we constructed two recombinant DEVs by transfecting overlapping fosmid DNAs. One virus, rDEV-TE, expresses the truncated form of the envelope glycoprotein (TE) of duck tembusu virus (DTMUV), and the other virus, rDEV-PrM/TE, expresses both the TE and pre-membrane proteins (PrM). Animal study demonstrated that both recombinant viruses induced measurable anti-DTMUV neutralizing antibodies in ducks. After two doses of recombinant virus, rDEV-PrM/TE completely protected ducks from DTMUV challenge, whereas rDEV-TE only conferred partial protection. These results demonstrate that recombinant DEV expressing the TE and pre-membrane proteins is protective and can serve as a potential candidate vaccine to prevent DTMUV infection in ducks.