Potential Vaccine Based on Modified Mouse CMV

Researchers have employed sophisticated genetic engineering techniques to modify mouse cytomegalovirus (CMV) to be able to mildly infect human cells and trigger a protective immune response.

Despite its close similarity to the virus that causes disease in man, mouse CMV is species-specific and unable to infect humans. Failure of mouse CMV to establish an infection in human cells was found to be due to hydrolysis of most newly replicated viral DNA and very low capsid protein transcription. These processes reduced production of new, infective viral particles to insignificant levels.

To counter this phenomenon, investigators at the Wistar Institute (Philadelphia, PA, USA) gradually transferred genes from human CMV into the mouse virus. Specifically, they implanted the genes for human CMV tegument proteins and immediate-early protein 1. Results reported in the August 1, 2006, issue of the Journal of Virology revealed that these two genes functioned synergistically to enable the production of significant amounts of infective mouse CMV particles in human cells.

"It should be possible to develop a safe and effective CMV vaccine using the method we have described in our study,” said senior author Dr. Gerd G. Maul, professor of genetics at the Wistar Institute. "Success will depend on achieving a certain balance between the immune-stimulating genes from the human virus and the basic safety of the mouse virus.”



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Wistar Institute