Schematic overview of the targeted RNA recombination principle and the donor plasmids used in the present study. (a) Schematic overview of the targeted RNA recombination method to generate recombinant rIBV-wt [10]. IBV sequences are in blue and murine hepatitis virus (MHV) sequences are in red. (b) Schematic layout of the donor plasmids pIBV-Δ3a, pIBV-Δ3b, pIBV-Δ5a or pIBV-Δ5b used in targeted RNA recombination to generate rIBV-Δ3a, rIBV-Δ3b, rIBV-Δ5a and rIBV-Δ5b, respectively.