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Scientists Develop New Flu Vaccines for Dogs

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These are “live-attenuated” vaccines.

Scientists at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry have developed two new vaccines for canine influenza.

Today, veterinarians use vaccines that include inactivated or killed flu virus, but experts say they provide short-term, limited protection. Scientists at created two “live-attenuated” vaccines against H3N8 canine influenza virus, which is currently circulating in dogs in the U.S., according to a press release. Past research shows that live-attenuated vaccines, made from live flu virus that is dampened down so that it doesn’t cause the flu, provide better immune responses and longer periods of protection.

The researchers used a genetic engineering technique called reserve genetics to create a live vaccine that replicates in the nose, but not in the lungs. The nose is where the virus first enters a dog’s body, so generating an immune response there could stop the virus in its tracks. If the vaccine were to get into the lungs it could create unwanted inflammation in response to the live virus. The study, published in the Journal of Virology, found the live vaccine was safe and able to induce better immune protection against H3N8 canine influenza virus in mice and dog tracheal cells than a commercially available inactivated vaccine.

In a second study highlighted in the journal Virology, the team used reserve genetics to remove a protein called NS1 from H3N8 canine influenza virus. Previous studies have shown that deleting the NS1 viral protein significantly weakens flu viruses so that they elicit an immune response but don’t cause illness. This approach has been used with human, swine and equine flu viruses to generate potential vaccines and was also safe and more effective than a traditional inactivated H3N8 influenza vaccine in mice and dog tracheal cells.

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The team is planning to test both live-attenuated vaccine approaches in clinical trials with dogs. The hope is to come up with new options to stem the spread of flu in shelters and kennels, and to avoid the transmission of a dog flu virus to people.

The team is using this research to tackle other dog flu viruses, too. They’ve used the safety of these approaches to engineer a live-attenuated vaccine for the H3N2 canine influenza virus, which was introduced in the U.S. in 2015. Early results show that similar to the H3N8 vaccine, the H3N2 live-attenuated vaccine is able to protect against the H3N2 canine influenza virus and is more effective than the only currently available inactivated vaccine.

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