Recombinant fowlpox virus

摘要

An improved method is described to prepare recombinant fowlpox virus for the expression of proteins or for use as a vaccine. The new method uses for the insertion of foreign DNA an intergenic region which is located between the FPV thymidine kinase (tk)gene and the 3'-open reading frame. Said intergenic region is enlarged to comprise one or more unique restriction sites, thereby allowing insertion of foreign DNA in such a way that the FPV tk-gene remains intact and codes for the entire thymidine kinase. New strong poxvirus promoters are presented and new FPV host virus strains carrying a vaccinia virus thymidine kinase gene and an E. coli lacZ gene as a novel non-essential site. The novel fowlpox virus host strains allow the use of any insertion plasmid carrying vaccinia virus tk-gene flanking regions.