Construction of an avian hepatitis E virus replicon expressing heterologous genes and evaluation of its potential as an RNA vaccine platform

To evaluate avian hepatitis E virus (aHEV) as an RNA vaccine platform, ORF2 of aHEV was replaced by heterologous genes, such as eGFP and HA-tag, in aHEV infectious cDNA clones. eGFP and HA-tag replicons were expressed in LMH cells. To confirm expression of the heterologous protein, ORF2 was replaced with the antigenic S1 gene of IBV. The IBVS1 replicon was expressed in LMH cells. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation showing the potential as a RNA vaccine platform using an aHEV. In the future, it may be used in the development of RNA vaccines against various pathogens.