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Selection versus mutation: reducing the risk of vaccine reversion

Reference	BBS/E/I/00001751
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor John Hammond
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	7,665
Status	Current
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/03/2014
End date	28/02/2017
Duration	35 months

Abstract

Vaccination against numerous endemic pathogens is an essential component of the poultry industry. Without these vaccines chickens would succumb to infection at an early age reducing the productivity of the industry well below sustainable levels. IBV is an endemic virus that causes severe disease outbreaks in chickens worldwide. Effective and economically viable vaccines against IBV are available and mainly produced from pathogenic virus strains by passing in eggs approximately one hundred times. During these passages the virus accumulates multiple sequence variations from the original pathogenic sequence. This ultimately leads to attenuation of the virus and the production of a live attenuated vaccine. These vaccines have lost their ability to cause disease but still elicit a protective immune response in the chicken, thus protecting the bird from future infections. However, as these are live viruses the potential for to revert back to a pathogenic form is considerable considering the few sequence changes between wild and vaccine strains. Despite the importance of these vaccines to the poultry industry and the risk of reversion, the processes that occur and the selective forces that drive virus attenuation during egg passage are unknown. Importantly, the differential contribution of virus sequence mutation compared to the selection of minor variants already present in the virus population has not been determined. Understanding these basic processes is essential to the development of future vaccines to reduce the threat of reversion.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Animal Health, Microbiology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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