Recombinant measles viruses expressing epitopes of antigens of RNA viruses—use for the preparation of vaccine compositions

A rescue system for the assembly of infectious recombinant measles virus expressing a heterologous amino acid sequence, which comprises a determined helper cell recombined with at least one vector suitable for expression of T7 RNA polymerase and expression of the N, P and L proteins of the measles virus, and a determined cell transfected with a recombinant measles virus expression vector comprising:

• A) the nucleotide sequence encoding the full length antigenomic (+)RNA strand of a measles virus vaccine strain;
• B) a T7 promoter sequence comprising a GGG motif at its 3′ end, operably linked to the nucleotide sequence of A;
• C) a hammerhead ribozyme sequence located adjacent to the GGG motif at one end and adjacent to the first nucleotide of the nucleotide sequence encoding the full length anti-genomic (+)RNA strand of the measles virus at the other end;
• D) a T7 terminator sequence operably linked to the nucleotide sequence of A;
• E) the sequence of a hepatitis delta virus ribozyme located adjacent to the last nucleotide of the nucleotide sequence encoding the full length anti-genomic (+)RNA strand of the measles virus;
• and
• F) a heterologous coding sequence encoding a heterologous amino acid sequence comprising an HIV antigen.