Orf virus strain:OV-IA82 Raw sequence reads. Orf virus strain:OV-IA82

Orf virus (ORFV) has been used as a vaccine delivery vector for multiple animal species. Several strategies are being used to improve the immunogenicity and efficacy of ORFV virus vectors, including the use poxviral promoter(s) with strong early and late activity capable of driving the expression of theheterologous genes for a prolonged time and eliciting a potent immune response. Here, we used RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) to analyze the transcriptome of ORFV during infection in primary ovine cells.Based on the transcriptional profile of individual ORFV genes, we identified ORFV promoters withstrong early and late activity have shown that they can be used to express heterologous genes in ORFVvectors. Our results show that the promoter of ORF112 (p112) and ORF116 (p116) lead to markedlyhigher transgene expression than conventional poxviral promoters. Thus these promoters are valuablealternatives to express transgenes in parapox-based and possibly in other poxviral vectors.