Development of a novel thermostable Newcastle disease virus vaccine vector for expression of a heterologous gene

Thermostable Newcastle disease virus (NDV) vaccines have been used widely to control Newcastle disease for village poultry flocks, due to their independence of cold chains for delivery and storage. To explore the potential use of thermostable NDV as a vaccine vector, an infectious clone of thermostable avirulent NDV strain TS09-C was developed using reverse genetics technology. The GFP gene, along with the self-cleaving 2A gene of foot-and-mouth disease virus and ubiquitin monomer (2AUbi), were inserted immediately upstream of the NP (nucleocapsid protein), M (matrix protein) or L (large polymerase protein) gene translation start codon in the TS09-C infectious clone. Detection of GFP expression in the recombinant virus-infected cells showed that the recombinant virus, rTS-GFP/M, with the GFP gene inserted into the M gene expressed the highest level of GFP. The rTS-GFP/M virus retained the same thermostability, growth dynamics and pathogenicity as its parental rTS09-C virus. Vaccination of specific-pathogen-free chickens with the rTS-GFP/M virus conferred complete protection against virulent NDV challenge. Taken together, the data suggested that the rTS09-C virus could be used as a vaccine vector to develop bivalent thermostable vaccines against Newcastle disease and the target avian diseases for village chickens, especially in the developing and least-developed countries.