Viral defective interfering particles and uses thereof

Abstract

The present invention provides a composition of matter comprising a defective interfering virus particle, wherein said particle naturally occurs in a human infection and wherein said particles has a naturally occurring core antigen internal deletion. Provided is a pharmaceutical composition, comprising defective interfering virus particle and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. Provided is a method for preparing defective interfering virus, comprising the steps of: (1) introduce a defective interfering virus and a complementing plasmid expressing a wild type virus core antigen and optionally containing a drug resistance gene, into a recipient cell; (2) selecting for stably transfected colonies; (3) growing the drug resistant cells and screening for the production of virus DNA replication; and (4) collecting defective interfering virus particles from the medium. Further provided is a vaccine, comprising a defective interfering virus particle.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.