Attenuation of a vaccine strain of vaccinia virus via inactivation of interferon viroceptor

Abstract

The replication-competent virus VV-RG8 carrying a mutation at the B8R gene is less pathogenic for mice than the parental vaccine virus. We anticipate that step-wise inactivation of VV vaccine genes involved in evasion of host immune response may provide an alternative approach for generation of hyper-attenuated replication-competent vaccines.