• Vaccine Name: Canine distemper virus DNA vaccine encoding HA
• Target Pathogen: Canine distemper virus
• Target Disease: Canine distemper
• Vaccine Ontology ID: VO_0011459
• Type: DNA vaccine
• Status: Research
• Antigen: Canine distemper virus hemagglutinin
• CDVgp6 haemagglutinin protein H gene engineering:
  • Type: DNA vaccine construction
  • Description: Immunisations were performed with the plasmid vector pV1J containing an insert of the H gene (1815 base pairs, named pCDV-H) of the Onderstepoort strain of CDV (Jensen et al., 2009).
  • Detailed Gene Information: Click Here.
• DNA vaccine plasmid:
  • DNA vaccine plasmid name:
  • DNA vaccine plasmid VO ID: VO_0000328
• Immunization Route: Intramuscular injection (i.m.)

Cat Response

• Host Strain: Tonkinese cat
• Vaccination Protocol: The mink kits were vaccinated 4 times. The first vaccination was administered to 5 days old mink kits, the initial dose was 200 μg of the pCDV-H, and divided between 70 μg injected intradermally and 130 μg injected intramuscularly with 27 G 0.5 ml hypodermic needles. The intradermal injections were distributed on the posterior part of the back. The intramuscular injections were distributed in the quadriceps muscle of each thigh and in the tibialis muscles of each leg. The combination of intradermal and intramuscular injections was chosen because this combination induced solid protective immunity in adult mink. The second vaccination was applied at 3 weeks of age under anaesthesia (1–15 mg/kg each xylazine and ketamine). Anaesthesia was applied for animal welfare reasons and to ascertain correct injections since mink are difficult to restrain. The second vaccination consisted of 400 μg with 140 μg distributed intradermally and 260 μg distributed intramuscularly. The third and fourth vaccinations each of 400 μg were given at 6 and 9 weeks of age following the same procedure as the second vaccination (Jensen et al., 2009).
• Challenge Protocol: The wild type virus used for the experimental challenge inoculation was isolated from a distemper outbreak in farmed mink in Denmark in 2004. This virus was named Mink/DK2004. The H gene of Mink/DK2004 showed 90% identity at the amino acid sequence level to the corresponding sequences of the Onderstepoort vaccine strain. A challenge dose of 3 × 10^5 TCID50 was administered partly intraperitoneally and intramuscularly (20% suspension) and to the conjunctival and nasal mucosa (10% suspension) to anaesthetised mink (Jensen et al., 2009).
• Efficacy: The mink were protected against viraemia, lymphopenia, clinical disease and changes in the percentage of IFN-gamma producing peripheral blood leucocytes after challenge inoculation with a recent wild type strain of CDV. Essentially, these results demonstrate that early life DNA vaccination with the H gene of a CDV vaccine strain induced robust protective immunity against a recent wild type CDV (Jensen et al., 2009).