Highly attenuated modified vaccinia virus Ankara replicates in baby hamster kidney cells, a potential host for virus propagation, but not in various human transformed and primary cells.

Abstract

Although desirable for safety reasons, the host range restrictions of modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) make it less applicable for general use. Propagation in primary chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF) requires particular cell culture experience and has no pre-established record of tissue culture reproducibility. We investigated a variety of established cell lines for productive virus growth and recombinant gene expression. Baby hamster kidney cells (BHK), a well-characterized, easily maintained cell line, supported MVA growth and as proficient expression of the E. coli lacZ reporter gene as the highly efficient CEF, whereas other cell lines were non-permissive or allowed only very limited MVA replication. Importantly, no virus production occurred in patient-derived infected primary human cells. These results emphasize the safety and now improved accessibility of MVA for the development of expression vectors and live recombinant vaccines.

Cognate Peptide–MHC Complexes Are Expressed as Tightly Apposed Nanoclusters in Virus-Infected Cells To Allow TCR Crosslinking

“…The full-length OVA encoding modified vaccinia virus Ankara ([MVA-OVA]; a gift of Drs. E. Schwantes and G. Sutter, Paul Ehrlich Institute, Langen, Germany) (21) and the parental strain MVA; obtained via Dr. M. Esteban, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Madrid, Spain) were propagated and titrated in BHK-21 cells according to published methods (22).…”

MVA-nef induces HIV-1-specific polyfunctional and proliferative T-cell responses revealed by the combination of short- and long-term immune assays

“…MVA is a highly attenuated strain of vaccinia virus widely used as a safe viral vector to deliver antigens; 53 it does not replicate in most mammalian cells 54 and is thus considered as a good candidate vaccine for individuals with a compromised immune system, such as HIV-1-infected patients. Our data, along with previous reports in which an HIV-1 gag/multiepitope immunogen was delivered by the MVA vector, 38 show the capacity of MVA to improve the quality of the HIV-1-specific immune response in infected individuals.…”

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus spike protein expressed by attenuated vaccinia virus protectively immunizes mice

“…MVA accumulated multiple deletions and other mutations during Ͼ500 passages in chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEFs) (16)(17)(18), resulting in a severe host range restriction in most mammalian cells (19)(20)(21). Because the restriction occurs at a late stage of virus assembly, MVA expresses viral and recombinant proteins in nonpermissive as well as in permissive cells (22).…”