PRODUCTION OF ATTENUATED NEGATIVE STRANDED RNA VIRUS VACCINES FROM CLONED NUCLEOTIDE SEQUENCES

摘要

Attenuated, recombinant negative stranded RNA viruses suitable for vaccine use are produced from one or more isolated polynucleotide molecules encoding the virus. A recombinant genome or antigenome of the subject virus is modified to encode a mutation within a recombinant protein of the virus at one or more amino acid positions(s) corresponding to a site of an attenuating mutation in a heretologous, mutant negative stranded RNA virus. A similar attenuating mutation as identified in the heterologous negative stranded RNA virus is thus incorporated at a corresponding site within the recombinant virus to confer an attenuated phenotype on the recombinant virus. The attenuating mutation incorporated in the recombinant virus may be identical or conservative in relation to the attenuating mutation identified in the heterologous, mutant virus. By the transfer of mutations into recombinant negative stranded RNA viruses in this matter, candidate vaccine viruses are engineered to elicit a desired immune response against a subject virus in a host susceptible to infection thereby.