How promising are HIV-1-based virus-like particles for medical applications

Abstract

New approaches aimed at identifying patient-specific drug targets and addressing unmet clinical needs in the framework of precision medicine are a strong motivation for researchers worldwide. As scientists learn more about proteins that drive known diseases, they are better able to design promising therapeutic approaches to target those proteins. The field of nanotechnology has been extensively explored in the past years, and nanoparticles (NPs) have emerged as promising systems for target-specific delivery of drugs. Virus-like particles (VLPs) arise as auspicious NPs due to their intrinsic properties. The lack of viral genetic material and the inability to replicate, together with tropism conservation and antigenicity characteristic of the native virus prompted extensive interest in their use as vaccines or as delivery systems for therapeutic and/or imaging agents. Owing to its simplicity and non-complex structure, one of the viruses currently under study for the construction of VLPs is the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). Typically, HIV-1-based VLPs are used for antibody discovery, vaccines, diagnostic reagent development and protein-based assays. This review will be centered on the use of HIV-1-based VLPs and their potential biomedical applications.

Virus-like particle – mediated delivery of the RIG-I agonist M8 induces a type I interferon response and protects cells against viral infection

“…To generate a delivery platform with the ability to target specific cells and to induce an antiviral response, we produced virus-like particles (VLPs) by using the well described HIV-1 system ( Arevalo et al., 2016 ; Martins et al., 2022 ) enveloped with VSV-G glycoprotein and incorporating a 5’ppp-RNA, termed M8, that triggers a type I IFN antiviral program upon binding to the RIG-I cytosolic sensor. As a negative control we used VLPs carrying CIAP-M8, in which the 5’ triphosphate group was removed from M8 by the Calf Intestinal Alkaline Phosphatase.…”

ESCRT recruitment to mRNA-encoded SARS-CoV-2 spike induces virus-like particles and enhanced antibody responses

“…We also compared the S-EABR construct to other eVLP approaches (Martins et al, 2022) that require co-expression of S protein with structural viral proteins, such as HIV-1 Gag (Hoffmann et al, 2020) or the SARS-CoV-2 M, N, and E proteins (Syed et al, 2021). Western blot analysis showed that purified S-EABR eVLP fractions contained at least 10-fold more S protein than eVLPs produced by co-expression of S and Gag or S, M, N, and E (Figure 1G), suggesting that S-EABR eVLPs assemble and/or incorporate S proteins more efficiently than the other eVLP approaches.…”

Tailored Viral-Like Particles as Drivers of Medical Breakthroughs

“…VLPs can assembled with proteins a wide variety of viruses such as human papilloma virus (HPV) [24], human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) [25], Norwalk virus [26], and influenza virus [27]. Moreover, VLPs can be constructed in different expression systems, namely prokaryotic (bacteria) [28], eukaryotic (plant cells [29], insect cells [30], yeast [31] and mammalian cells [32]) and cell-free platforms [33].…”