The hygromycin-resistance-encoding gene as a selection marker for vaccinia virus recombinants

Hygromycin B (Hy), an inhibitor of RNA translation, was shown to block the replication of vaccinia virus (VV) in cultured cell lines. Insertion of the Escherichia coli Hy resistance-encoding gene (hph) into the VV genome under control of early or late synthetic VV promoters could overcome inhibition of viral replication. When hph was inserted into VV in tandem with the human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) L1 open reading frame, hph recombinant viruses could be selected which expressed HPV16 L1.