Application of Reverse Genetics for Producing Attenuated Vaccine Strains against Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses

In this study, reverse genetics was applied to produce vaccine candidate strains against highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) of the H5N1 subtype. The H5 subtype vaccine strains were generated by a reverse genetics method in a biosafety level 2 facility. The strain contained the HA gene from the H5N1 subtype HPAIV attenuated by genetic modification at the cleavage site, the NA gene derived from the H5N1 subtype HPAI or the H5N3 subtype of avian influenza virus and internal genes from A/Puerto Rico/8/34. Vaccination with an inactivated recombinant virus with oil-emulsion completely protected chickens from a homologous viral challenge with a 640 HAU or 3,200 HAU/vaccination dose. Vaccination with a higher dose of antigen, 3,200 HAU, was effective at increasing survival and efficiently reduced viral shedding even when challenged by a virus of a different HA clade. The feasibility of differentiation of infected from vaccinated animals (DIVA) was demonstrated against a challenge with H5N1 HPAIVs when the recombinant H5N3 subtype viruses were used as the antigens of the vaccine. Our study demonstrated that the use of reverse genetics would be an option to promptly produce an inactivated vaccine with better matching of antigenicity to a circulating strain.