Multivalent vaccines against Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV)

Infectious Bronchitis (IB) is an economically important severe respiratory infectious disease ofpoultry caused by IB coronavirus (IBV). The USA animal state health report identifies IBV as acritical source of economic loss in the broiler and egg laying industry. There is significant room forimprovement in current vaccines available for IBV. Innovative technologies that can address thetremendous genetic variation of IBV and the poor cross reactive immunity induced by conventionalvaccines are desperately needed. Our proposed vaccine platform overcomes limitations of currentcommercial vaccines by employing subunit "mosaic" antigens expressed by a safe plasmid DNAvector that should induce broad protective immunity from a single immunization. Supported with astrong set of preliminary results this project will: First test the hypothesis that IBV mosaicantigens can be safely delivered via high-througput routes of immunization (e.g. intranasal in ovo)and still generate a robust immune responses against avian coronavirus.Second evalute the crossprotective efficicacy of mosaic vaccine constructs against challenge with multiple strains of IBV inthe target species chickens. Successful completion of this project will directly lead to thedevelopment of a highly effective easy-to-dose broadly reactive IBV vaccine for immediate globalcommercialization by Pan Genome Systems. Knowledge gained from these studies will greatly aidus in understanding how to elicit broader immunity to IBV and how to produce a successful vaccineagainst this important respiratory infection.