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In vaccine development, a re-engineered virus can be used as the
vehicle - or vaccine vector - for delivering genetic material to a
cell. Once in the cell, genetic information is transcribed into
proteins, including the inserted antigen targeted against a
specific disease. Treatment is successful if the antigen delivered
by the vector into the cell produces a protein which starts the
body’s immune response against the antigen and thereby protects
against the disease.
Pox Viruses as Vectors
Viruses have recently
become the vectors of choice for transfer of genetic material into
new hosts. The most commonly used are pox viruses because of their
ability to replicate in the infected cell’s cytoplasm instead of
the nucleus and thereby minimalising the risk of integrating
genetic material into the genome of the host cell.
Of the pox viruses, the vaccinia and variola viruses are the two
best known. The variola virus is the cause of smallpox and the
vaccinia virus is used as a vaccine to prevent the disease. After
eradication of smallpox in 1980, work on the vaccinia virus and
most other pox viruses turned towards creating recombinant
(re-engineered) viruses as tools for molecular biology, cell
biology, and immunology. Today, recombinant viruses are under
development for possible gene therapy as well as novel vaccines for
infectious diseases and for cancer immunotherapy.
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