Using RVFV As a Vector Platform for the Expression of Ruminant Disease Antigens

Live attenuated viruses remain as vaccine agents with unparalleled performance in terms of duration, magnitude, and breadth of induced immune responses. As the yellow fever-attenuated vaccine strain Y17D, attenuated Rift Valley fever virus shares features suitable to be used as a viral vector for heterologous antigen expression and bivalent vaccine development. Current reverse genetics technology showed the successful rescue of RVFV carrying foreign antigens with little immunogenicity loss in experimental animal models. We show here the basic experimental protocol to achieve the expression of candidate vaccine antigens from other important diseases of ruminants using RVFV as a vector platform as well as preliminary steps for the characterization of immunogenicity in vivo.