Immunogenicity and relative attenuation of different vaccinia-rabies virus recombinants

Immunogenicity and relative attenuation were examined for the following Tian Tan strain vaccinia-rabies recombinant viruses: 1) NGc-1, which coexpresses the glycoprotein (G) and nucleocapsid protein (N) of the rabies virus Challenge Virus Standard (CVS) strain; 2) Nc-1, which expresses the CVS N; 3) Gc-2, Gc-3, Gc-4, and Gc-5, which express CVS G via promoters from different vaccinia strains or from different vaccinia genome loci; 4) Ga-1, which expresses the G of rabies virus strain aG; and 5) Gas-1; which expresses the carboxyltruncated G ectodomain (Gs) of strain aG. All but Nc-1 and Gas-1 induced rabies virus neutralizing antibodies (VNAs) and protected groups of mice at very high frequencies from intramuscular (IM) or intracranial (IC) challenge with CVS or SW1 Shanghai dog street rabies virus (SRV); Nc-1 and Gas-1 were partly protective, more frequently against IM challenge. NGc-1 and Gc-5 appeared to induce high levels of VNAs sooner after immunization than the other constructs in mice. Relative attenuation assessed by IM infection of neonatal mice, IC infection of adult mice, and intradermal infection of rabbits with varying doses was best for NGc-1. All the recombinants were at least 100-fold more attenuated than the parent, Tian Tan vaccinia virus. Gc-2, Gc-3, Gc-4, Gc-5, and NGc-1 induced VNAs after immunization of dogs, and a subset of VNA-positive animals vaccinated with NGc-1 or Gc-3 were protected against an otherwise lethal IM injection of SRV at 21 days after vaccination.