Patent Evaluation: Recombinant Baculovirus Vectors for the Expression of Proteins of Pathogenic Viruses

Summary

Novelty: A recombinant baculovirus vector is described which can express capsid proteins of pathogenic viruses and make non-replicative, antigenic particles for vaccines or diagnostics.

Biology: A bacterially replicating ‘transfer vector’ is used to construct a copy of the gene to be expressed under the control of the polyhedrin promoter or the IE1 gene promoter. The bacterial ‘transfer vector’ is used to transform sf9 cells and homologous recombination takes place to insert the transfer vector into the 13.0 map unit, non-essential region of the wild type baculovirus. The expressed genes can be capsids from sindbis virus, bluetongue virus, rubella virus, rabies virus and others. The patent describes a hybrid between sindbis and rubella viral capsids.