Chimeric Newcastle Disease Virus Protects Chickens against Avian Influenza in the Presence of Maternally Derived NDV Immunity.docVIP

Chimeric Newcastle Disease Virus Protects Chickens against Avian Influenza in the Presence of Maternally Derived NDV Immunity 1 2 Constanze Steglich , Christian Grund , Kristina Ramp 1 3 2 1 , Angele Breithaupt , Dirk H?per , Günther Keil , Jutta Veits , Mario Ziller , Harald Granzow , Thomas C. Mettenleiter , Angela R?mer-Oberd?rfer 1 4 5 1 1* 1 Institute of Molecular Biology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany, 2 Institute of Diagnostic Virology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany, 3 Department of Experimental Animal Facilities and Biorisk Management, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany, 4 AG Bioinformatics, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany, 5 Institute of Infectology, Friedrich- Loeffler-Institut, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany Abstract Newcastle disease virus (NDV), an avian paramyxovirus type 1, is a promising vector for expression of heterologous proteins from a variety of unrelated viruses including highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV). However, pre- existing NDV antibodies may impair vector virus replication, resulting in an inefficient immune response against the foreign antigen. A chimeric NDV-based vector with functional surface glycoproteins unrelated to NDV could overcome this problem. Therefore, an NDV vector was constructed wh