Abstract
BackgroundVirus-like particle (VLP) vaccines have recently emerged as a safe and effective alternative to conventional vaccine technologies. The strong immunogenic effects of VLPs can be harnessed for making vaccines against any pathogen by decorating VLPs with antigens from the pathogen. Producing the antigenic pathogen fragments and the VLP platform separately makes vaccine development rapid and convenient. Here we decorated the norovirus-like particle with two conserved influenza antigens and tested for the immunogenicity of the vaccine candidates in BALB/c mice.ResultsSpyTagged noro-VLP was expressed with high efficiency in insect cells and purified using industrially scalable methods. Like the native noro-VLP, SpyTagged noro-VLP is stable for months when refrigerated in a physiological buffer. The conserved influenza antigens were produced separately as SpyCatcher fusions in E. coli before covalent conjugation on the surface of noro-VLP. The noro-VLP had a high adjuvant effect, inducing high titers of antibody production against the antigens presented on its surface.ConclusionsThe modular noro-VLP vaccine platform presented here offers a rapid, convenient and safe method to present various soluble protein antigens to the immune system for vaccination and antibody production purposes.
Highlights
Virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines have recently emerged as a safe and effective alternative to conventional vaccine technologies
The best SpyTagnoro-VLP yields were obtained by infecting Hi5 insect cells with SpyTag-noro-VLP-expressing baculovirus at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) value of 1 and proceeding to the first crude purification step directly after collecting the expressed protein
Important for a vaccine platform, our studies demonstrate that the SpyTag-noro-VLP is stable and that it can be stored at normal refrigerator temperature for months
Summary
Virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines have recently emerged as a safe and effective alternative to conventional vaccine technologies. Lampinen et al J Nanobiotechnol (2021) 19:25 They are virus-genome-free particles that are similar in size and shape to the respective viruses. This makes VLPs incapable of infection but still very effective in mounting immune responses [4]. Wherein the antigen and VLP are produced separately and conjugated together only after that, circumvents these problems Both native and decorated VLP vaccines, such as vaccines against human papilloma virus and malaria [Gardasil (MSD, Ireland), and Mosquirix H-W-2300 (GSK, UK), respectively], are already in clinical use, which demonstrates the commercial feasibility and medical potential of VLP technology. The modular VLP vaccine approach is not yet in clinical use, but with the research reported here, we aim to append to previous research on the subject and bring it closer to clinical testing
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