F. Scheiflinger et al., EVALUATION OF THE THYMIDINE KINASE (TK) LOCUS AS AN INSERTION SITE INTHE HIGHLY ATTENUATED VACCINIA MVA STRAIN, Archives of virology, 141(3-4), 1996, pp. 663-669
The highly attenuated 'modified vaccinia Ankara' (MVA) strain is a pot
ential live vaccine vector. Insertional inactivation of the tk-gene re
sulted in viruses difficult to purify. Go-integration of a functional
fowlpox virus tk-gene allowed easy generation of recombinants, indicat
ing that the genetically stable tk-gene region is a suitable insertion
site, if tk-gene activity is substituted.