Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
6138683 | Virology | 2016 | 8 Pages |
Abstract
Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) represents a pandemic threat with no approved vaccine available. Recently, we described a novel vaccination strategy based on iDNA® infectious clone designed to launch a live-attenuated CHIKV vaccine from plasmid DNA in vitro or in vivo. As a proof of concept, we prepared iDNA plasmid pCHIKV-7 encoding the full-length cDNA of the 181/25 vaccine. The DNA-launched CHIKV-7 virus was prepared and compared to the 181/25 virus. Illumina HiSeq2000 sequencing revealed that with the exception of the 3â² untranslated region, CHIKV-7 viral RNA consistently showed a lower frequency of single-nucleotide polymorphisms than the 181/25 RNA including at the E2-12 and E2-82 residues previously identified as attenuating mutations. In the CHIKV-7, frequencies of reversions at E2-12 and E2-82 were 0.064% and 0.086%, while in the 181/25, frequencies were 0.179% and 0.133%, respectively. We conclude that the DNA-launched virus has a reduced probability of reversion mutations, thereby enhancing vaccine safety.
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Authors
Rachmat Hidajat, Brian Nickols, Naomi Forrester, Irina Tretyakova, Scott Weaver, Peter Pushko,