Virus-like particles: flexible platforms for vaccine development

Abstract

Virus-like particles (VLPs) consist of viral structural proteins that, when overexpressed, spontaneously self-assemble into particles that are antigenically indistinguishable from infectious virus or subviral particles. VLPs can be considered as dense, repetitive arrays of one or more protein subunits with properties that are highly advantageous for use as stand-alone vaccines or as vaccine platforms. This review discusses the development of VLP-based platform technologies for vaccines against pathogens, as well as nontraditional targets such as self-antigens involved in chronic diseases.

Keywords::

• antibody induction
• cytotoxic T lymphocyte
• self-antigen
• virus-like particle

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Bob Rubin for helpful discussions and for reading the manuscript. I am also grateful to John Schiller for his inspiration and guidance. The author is supported by grants from the NIH (R01 AI065240) and the Alzheimer’s Association (NIRG 05–12717).

Conflict of interest

The author is a coinventor on a US government-owned patent: virus-like particles for the induction of autoantibodies (US patent 6,719,978).