Xianmiao Ye, Xinglong Liu, Tao Shu, Weiqi Deng, Min Liao, Yali Zheng, Xuehua Zheng, Xiaoyan Zhang, Ting Li, Wenxia Fan, Linbing Qu, Ling Chen, Feng Li, Liqiang Feng
Zika virus (ZIKV) infection during pregnancy has been linked to congenital abnormalities such as microcephaly in infants. An efficacious vaccine is still desirable for preventing the potential recurrence of ZIKV epidemic. Here, we report the generation of an attenuated ZIKV (rGZ02a) that has sharply decreased virulence in mice but grows to high titers in Vero cells, a widely approved cell line for manufacturing human vaccines. Compared to the wild-type ZIKV (GZ02) and a plasmid-launched rGZ02p, rGZ02a has 3 unique amino acid alterations in the envelope (E, S304F), non-structural protein 1 (NS1, R103K), and NS5 (W637R)...
April 28, 2021: Journal of Virology