• Vaccine Name: Recombinant vaccinia virus encoding HA from Influenza B virus (Strain B/England/222/82)
• Target Pathogen: Influenza virus
• Target Disease: Influenza (flu)
• Vaccine Ontology ID: VO_0004170
• Type: Recombinant vector vaccine
• Status: Research
• Antigen: Influenza B virus (Strain B/England/222/82) HA hemagglutinin
• HA gene engineering:
  • Type: Recombinant vector construction
  • Description: The HA genes were excised from the pUC-derived plasmids by digestion with BamHl and EcoRl, gel purified, and ligated to BamHl-EcoRl-digested pGS62 (Esposito et at, 1987). The pGS62-derived plasmids containing the B/Eng HA genes were designated pGSBHAM and pGSBHAE. The cloned HA genes were inserted into vaccinia virus using a transfection procedure (Rota et al., 1987).
  • Detailed Gene Information: Click Here.
• Immunization Route: Intraperitoneal injection (i.p.)

Mouse Response

• Host Strain: A/J
• Vaccination Protocol: ANJ mice (six to nine mice per experiment) received a single intraperitoneal injection of 10' PFU of recombinant (v .v.BHAE, v.v.BHAM) or wild-type vaccinia virus . Serum samples were obtained from these animals and analyzed for neutralizing antibody using a microneutralization assay (Anderson et at, 1986; Harmon et at, in preparation) modified for use with influenza . In some cases, sera were preabsorbed with inactivated, purified B/Eng virions prior to the neutralization assay (Rota et al., 1987).
• Challenge Protocol: For mouse challenge experiments, vaccinated mice were given 20,000 TCID 50 of either egg- or MDCK cell-derived B/Eng intranasally in a volume of 25 μl . Lung homogenates, prepared 3 days after infection, were tested for influenza B antigen using a capture time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay and for infectious virus by a plaque assay on MDCK cell monolayers (Rota et al., 1987).
• Efficacy: Immunization and challenge experiments in mice indicated that even though vaccination with the recombinant HA vaccinia viruses derived from Influenza B virus (Strain B/England/222/82) induced different levels of cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies, mice vaccinated with either recombinant vaccinia virus were protected from infection with either subpopulation of influenza virus (Rota et al., 1987).