Poliovirus Sabin 1 as a Live Vaccine Vector: Expression of HIV-1 p24 Core Protein

The poliovirus Sabin 1 strain has features that make it a particularly attractive live recombinant mucosal vaccine vehicle. Sabin 1 cDNA was manipulated to have multiple cloning sites and a viral specific 3C-protease cutting site at the N-terminal end of the polyprotein. The gene for the N-terminal 169 amino acids of the HIV-1 p24 was cloned into the multiple cloning site of the manipulated Sabin cDNA. A recombinant progeny virus was produced from HeLa cells when it was transfected with the RNA synthesized from the p24-Sabin chimeric cDNA. The recombinant progeny virus expresses substantial amounts of the HIV-1 p24 protein, which was clearly detected in the infected cell lysates and culture supernatants in Western blot experiments with rabbit anti-p24 serum and AIDS patients' sera. Differing from the Mahoney strain, the recombinant Sabin 1 poliovirus maintained the foreign gene stably during the subsequent passages. Replication capacity was about 1 to 1.5 log lower than that of the wild-type Sabin 1. Other physicochemical stability characteristics of the recombinant virus were similar to that of the wild-type Sabin 1. These results suggest that the manipulated Sabin 1 poliovirus can be used as a live viral vaccine vector for the development of mucosal vaccines.