Alphaherpesvirus-vectored vaccines against animal diseases: Current progress

Abstract Recombinant virus-vectored vaccines are novel agents that can effectively activate specific and nonspecific immunity, are multivalent and multieffective, and have high safety ratings. Animal alphaherpesviruses have a large genome, contain multiple nonessential regions that do not affect viral replication and are capable of accepting the insertion of an exogenous gene and expressing the antigen protein. Furthermore, animal alphaherpesviruses have a wide host spectrum, can replicate in the host and continuously stimulate the animal to produce immunity to the corresponding pathogen, thus making them ideal carriers for recombinant virus-vectored vaccines. With the development of gene-editing technology, recombinant viruses capable of expressing foreign genes can be constructed by various methods. Currently, studies on recombinant virus-vectored vaccines constructed based on animal alphaherpesviruses have involved poultry, pigs, cattle, sheep, and companion animals. Studies have shown that the construction of recombinant animal alphaherpesviruses enables the acquisition of immunity to multiple diseases. This article mainly summarizes the current progress on animal alphaherpesvirus-vectored vaccines, aiming to provide reference for the development of new animal alphaherpesvirus-vectored vaccines.