PRODUCTION OF A SUBUNIT VACCINE FOR RIFT VALLEY FEVER VIRUS

Abstract

Publisher Summary Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is a member of the phlebotomus fever serogroup in the Bunyaviridae family of viruses. The genome of RVFV consists of three RNA segments of negative polarity termed L, M, and S. By analogy with other Bunyaviruses , the M RNA species is presumed to contain the genetic information coding for the two viral glycoproteins G 1 and G 2 . This chapter describes an experiment to produce in bacteria proteins related to the glycoproteins of RVFV that may then serve as a subunit vaccine. In the experiment, RVFV M RNA was prepared from nucleocapsids and tailed with adenosine residues using E. coli poly(A) polymerase. The RNA was then chromatographed on oligo (dT)-cellulose to select for those M RNA molecules that were polyadenylated at their 3'-end. This RNA fraction was then used as a template for cDNA synthesis by reverse transcriptase using oligo (dT) as primer.