The vaccines based on the replicon of the venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis virus against viral hemorrhagic fevers

Abstract

The status of the various recombinant DNA and RNA-derived candidate vaccines, as well as the Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis virus (VEEV) replicon vaccine system against extremely hazardous viral hemorrhagic fevers, were reviewed. The VEEV-based replication-incompetent vectors offer attractive features in terms of safety, high expression levels of the heterologous viral antigen, tropism to dendritic cells, robust immune responses, protection efficacy, low potential for pre-existing anti-vector immunity and possibility of engineering multivalent vaccines were tested. These features of the VEEV replicon system hold much promise for the development of new generation vaccine candidates against viral hemorrhagic fevers.

Keywords

• arenaviruses
• venezuelan equine encephalitis virus
• hemorrhagic fevers
• recombinant vaccines
• rna- replicons
• filoviruses