Protection against lethal Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) infection in transgenic IFNAR−/− mice induced by different DNA vaccination regimens

In this work, plasmid constructs encoding two different M segment ORFs, as well as the nucleoprotein N, have been used in different vaccination regimes to test protection against a RVFV-MP12 virus challenge in a transgenic mouse model with impaired interferon type I response (IFNAR−/−). We obtained dose dependent protection in animals immunized with a construct encoding both mature glycoproteins (pCMV-M4), whereas only partial protection in animals vaccinated with either N construct (pCMV-N) or a combination of both plasmids (pCMV-M4 + pCMV-N). The protection elicited by the expression of the mature glycoproteins could be directly related to the induction of neutralizing antibodies against them. Interestingly, the combination of both vaccine constructs induced specific lymphoblast proliferation upon stimulation with a recombinant nucleoprotein.