Vaccination procedures against Coxsackievirus-induced heart disease.

Coxsackievirus B3--a member of the picornavirus family--is one of the major causes of virus-induced acute or chronic heart disease. Despite the fact that the molecular structure of this pathogen has been characterized very precisely during the last 10 years, until recently, there was no virus-specific preventive or therapeutic procedure against Coxsackievirus B3-induced human heart disease in clinical use. However, using different murine model systems it has been demonstrated that classic as well as newly developed vaccination procedures are quite successful in preventing Coxsackievirus B3 infections. In particular, the application of an interferon-gamma-expressing recombinant Coxsackievirus variant against Coxsackievirus B3-induced myocarditis has been effective.