ABSTRACT
Alphaviruses represent a large class of arthropod-borne viruses (Arboviruses) belonging to the Togaviridae family of viruses, which cause transient febrile illness or more severe diseases such as encephalitis. The most commonly used vectors were generated on the basis of three alphaviruses: Semliki Forest virus (SFV) (Liljestrom and Garoff 1991), Sindbis virus (SIN) (Xiong et al. 1989), and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEE) (Davis et al. 1989).
