Structure and properties of a herpesvirus of turkeys recombinant in which US1, US10 and SORF3 genes have been replaced by a lacZ expression cassette.

In the process of generating an insertional mutant of herpesvirus of turkeys (HVT) expressing lacZ at the protein kinase (PK) locus, we isolated a recombinant which contained an intact PK gene but the short unique regions US1, US10 and SORF3 had been deleted and replaced by the lacZ cassette. Moreover, the virus contained duplicate copies of gD, gI and gE in an opposite orientation flanking lacZ, US2 and PK which were contiguous. These results are of interest in relation to the flexibility of the short unique segment (Us) and of the inverted repeats flanking Us of the alpha-herpesviruses. The recombinant expressed beta-galactosidase and was genetically stable in vitro and in vivo. Chickens inoculated with the virus developed antibodies to HVT antigens and to beta-galactosidase but the replication of the recombinant in vivo was impaired in comparison to parental HVT as shown by a reduction in the proportion of infected lymphocytes.