Modern approaches to production of safe and effective genetically modified rabies vaccines for animals

Rabies is a dangerous zoonoticdisease that affects the central nervous system, causes encephalomyelitis and paralyses and Is almost invariably fatal. The disease causes significant economic losses associated with the death of animals, outbreak consequences, strict restrictions on domestic and international trade in livestock products, preventive and quarantine measures, laboratory tests. The World Organization for Animal Health recommends vaccination to control rabies. Taking into account that there is a lack of affordable high-quality vaccines to globally prevent and control the disease, stable, attenuated production strains of rabies virus with broad cross-activity against various variants of the pathogen shall be considered as ideal candidates to produce high-quality, safe and effective vaccines. Currently, someapproachesareappliedtoreducethevirusvirulenceandimprovesafetyof rabies vaccines. Reverse genetics is very popular now. It provides new approaches to study functions of a specific gene by analyzing phenotypic effects after direct manipulations with nucleotide sequences. The methods of reverse genetics have revolutionized molecular biology and have become apowerful tool to study genetics of RNA viruses. These methods are widely used to study rabies virus. The use of reverse genetics has made it possible to modify rabies virus production strains for manufacture of modern genetically modified rabies vaccines that induce a persistent and long-term immunity. The review briefly covers general approaches to development of viral vectors with the purpose to create genetically modified rabies vaccines.

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