Respiratory syncytial virus modified by deletions of the NS2 gene and amino acid S1313 of the L polymerase protein is a temperature-sensitive, live-attenuated vaccine candidate that is phenotypically stable at physiological temperature.

Human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading viral cause of lower respiratory tract disease in infants and children worldwide. In previous work to develop point mutations in RSV with improved genetic stability, we observed that an attenuating mutation at amino acid position 1321 in the L polymerase protein was subject to deattenuation by a spontaneous second-site compensatory mutation at position 1313 (C. Luongo, C. C. Winter, P. L. Collins, and U. J. Buchholz, J. Virol. 86:10792-10804, 2012). In the present study, we found that deletion of position 1313 (Delta 1313), irrespective of the presence of an attenuating mutation at position 1321, provided a new attenuating mutation. RSV bearing Delta 1313 replicated in cell culture as efficiently as wild-type virus at 32 degrees C, was restricted for replication at 37 degrees C, and was restricted 50-fold and 150-fold in the upper and lower respiratory tracts, respectively, of mice. We combined the Delta 1313 deletion with the previously described, attenuating NS2 gene deletion (Delta NS2) to produce the recombinant live-attenuated RSV vaccine candidate Delta NS2/Delta 1313. During in vitro stress tests involving serial passage at incrementally increasing temperatures, a second-site compensatory mutation was detected in close proximity of Delta 1313, namely, I1314T. This site was genetically and phenotypically stabilized by an I1314L substitution. Combination of I1314L with Delta NS2/Delta 1313 yielded a virus, Delta NS2/Delta 1313/1314L, with genetic stability at physiological temperature. This stabilized vaccine candidate was moderately temperature sensitive and had a level of restriction in chimpanzees comparable to that of MEDI-559, a promising RSV vaccine candidate that presently is in clinical trials but lacks stabilized attenuating mutations. The level of attenuation and genetic stability identify Delta NS2/Delta 1313/1314L as a promising candidate for evaluation in pediatric phase I studies.