Novel vaccinia virus vectors related to mva with extensive genomic symmetries

A Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) related virus comprising one or more of the following features:

• (i) a nucleic acid sequence corresponding to a region that includes the right Inverted Terminal Repeat (ITR) and extends to but excludes deletion site III instead of a nucleic acid sequence that includes the left Inverted Terminal Repeat (ITR) and extends to but excludes deletion site V,
• (ii) two copies of a nucleic acid sequence comprising deletion site IV and the right ITR,
• (iii) no nucleic acid sequence comprising deletion site I and the left ITR,
• (iv) no deletion site I,
• (v) two deletion sites IV,
• (vi) no open reading frame for at least one gene product selected from the group consisting of C11R, C10L, and D7L,
• (vii) two open reading frames for at least one gene product selected from the group consisting of A57R, B1R, B2R, B3R, B4R, B5R, B6R, B7R, B8R, B9R, B10R, B11R, B12R, B15R, B16R, B17L, B18R, B19R, and B22R, and/or
• (viii) a nucleic acid sequence encoding a L3L gene product, wherein said nucleic acid sequence comprises at least one mutation resulting in an amino acid sequence modification of said gene product.