Construction and immunogenicity of a recombinant pseudorabies virus expressing the rabies virus glycoprotein and EGFP

The rabies virus glycoprotein is an efficient vaccine antigen particularly for the oral vaccine of wildlife. Pseudorabies virus contains many non-essential genes and was usually used to construct recombinant vaccines as a viral vector to deliver foreign genes into the target animals. In this study, a recombinant pseudorabies virus rPRV/SRV9G/EGFP, expressing EGFP and rabies virus (SRV9 strain) glycoprotein was constructed by homologous recombination in the UL21 gene. The immunogenicity was evaluated as a vaccine in mice. In this trial, thirty mice were administered with the recombinant vaccine orally. This recombinant virus was demonstrated to be safe for mice by oral administration and could induce neutralizing antibody level above 0.5 IU mL ^-1 at 3 weeks after the vaccination. The results suggest that rPRV/SRV9G/EGFP was an effective oral vaccine candidate against rabies and UL21 gene could be a target insertion area for foreign genes.