Mammalian Expression of Virus-like Particles for Advanced Mimicry of Authentic Influenza Virus

Influenza A viruses are major human and animal pathogens with huge economic and societal impact from illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. Virus-like particles (VLPs) of influenza virus have been suggested as a vaccine candidate offering improved safety and efficacy. To develop this concept further, we established a flexible platform to efficiently generate different subtypes of mammalian-expressed influenza VLPs. Here we provide compiling evidences that these mammalian VLPs strongly resemble the authentic viruses in structure, particle size and composition of host factors, and even glycosylation of viral antigens. Furthermore, we demonstrate that mammalian VLPs protects from lethal viral challenge in a mouse model, suggesting the VLP system are of great potential to generate safe and effective vaccine against influenza virus.
Pei-Wen Hsiao

Chia-Ying Wu, Yi-Chun Yeh, Yu-Chih Yang, Ching Chou, Ming-Tsan Liu, Ho-Sheng Wu, Jia-Tsrong Chan, and Pei-Wen Hsiao * (2010) Mammalian Expression of Virus-like Particles for Advanced Mimicry of Authentic Influenza Virus PLoS ONE , 5 (3) e9784