Institute for Animal Health, Pirbright, Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2011 Jan 26;6(1):e16503. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016503.
African horse sickness (AHS) is a lethal viral disease of equids, which is transmitted by Culicoides midges that become infected after biting a viraemic host. The use of live attenuated vaccines has been vital for the control of this disease in endemic regions. However, there are safety concerns over their use in non-endemic countries. Research efforts over the last two decades have therefore focused on developing alternative vaccines based on recombinant baculovirus or live viral vectors expressing structural components of the AHS virion. However, ethical and financial considerations, relating to the use of infected horses in high biosecurity installations, have made progress very slow. We have therefore assessed the potential of an experimental mouse-model for AHSV infection for vaccine and immunology research. We initially characterised AHSV infection in this model, then tested the protective efficacy of a recombinant vaccine based on modified vaccinia Ankara expressing AHS-4 VP2 (MVA-VP2).
非洲马瘟（AHS）是一种致命的马属动物病毒病，通过叮咬病毒血症宿主的库蠓传播。在流行地区，使用活减毒疫苗对于该病的控制至关重要。然而，在非流行国家使用此类疫苗存在安全隐患。因此，过去二十年来的研究工作重点是开发基于重组杆状病毒或表达 AHS 病毒粒子结构成分的活病毒载体的替代疫苗。然而，与在高生物安全设施中使用受感染马匹相关的伦理和财务考虑因素，使得进展非常缓慢。因此，我们评估了实验性 AHSV 感染小鼠模型在疫苗和免疫学研究中的潜力。我们首先在该模型中对 AHSV 感染进行了特征描述，然后测试了基于表达 AHS-4 VP2 的改良安卡拉痘苗病毒（MVA-VP2）的重组疫苗的保护效力。
