Modular vaccine platform based on the norovirus-like particle

Abstract

Background Virus-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. Results SpyTagged 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. Conclusions The 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.

Virus-Like Particles: Revolutionary Platforms for Developing Vaccines Against Emerging Infectious Diseases

“…Genetically fusion of antigen to capsid protein of virus often hinders either antigen assembly or VLP, making the technique laborious. Therefore, time-intensive planning and optimization are required for individually testing every single antigen ( Lampinen et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Virus-like particle (VLP) technology presents an alternative platform for developing effective vaccines to combat infectious diseases of serious concern, and it is moving in parallel with mRNA and viral-vector based vaccines ( Lampinen et al, 2021 ). VLPs are also far more immunogenic as compared to other subunit vaccines as they present repetitive antigenic epitopes on their surface in a more authentic confirmation that the immune system can readily detect.…”

Controlled Human Infection Models To Accelerate Vaccine Development

“…Eight additional candidate norovirus vaccines based on whole VLPs or smaller protruding domain (P) particles produced from just the protruding portion of VP1 are in preclinical development, along with two adenovirus-vectored norovirus vaccines (452,457,468,(497)(498)(499)(500). Table 19 summarizes this information and indicates the institutions involved.…”

The Construction and Immunogenicity Analyses of Recombinant Pseudorabies Virus With NADC30-Like Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus-Like Particles Co-expression

“…Multiple previous studies have identified multiple neutralization epitopes distributed on major structural protein (GP5 and M) and minor glycoprotein (GP2a, GP3, and GP4) ( Vanhee et al, 2011 ). In the last years, a lot of effort has been put into VLPs for vaccine development to control human or animal disease ( Kang et al, 2021 ; Lampinen et al, 2021 ; Marin et al, 2021 ; Wang et al, 2021 ). Previous studies showed that GP5 and M protein interaction, GP2, GP3, GP4, and E protein interaction, GP5, GP4, GP3, GP2a, and M protein interaction, and GP5, M, and N protein interaction of PRRSV could form VLPs ( Uribe-Campero et al, 2015 ; Binjawadagi et al, 2016 ; García Durán et al, 2016 ).…”