Hepatitis B Core-based Virus-like Particles: A Platform for Vaccine Development in Plants

Overview

Journal Biotechnol Rep (Amst)

Specialty Biotechnology

Date 2021 Mar 18

PMID 33732633

Citations 20

Authors

Maryam Moradi Vahdat

Farshad Hemmati

Abozar Ghorbani

Daria Rutkowska

Alireza Afsharifar

Mohammad Hadi Eskandari

Nahid Rezaei

Ali Niazi

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are a class of structures formed by the self-assembly of viral capsid protein subunits and contain no infective viral genetic material. The Hepatitis B core (HBc) antigen is capable of assembling into VLPs that can elicit strong immune responses and has been licensed as a commercial vaccine against Hepatitis B. The HBc VLPs have also been employed as a platform for the presentation of foreign epitopes to the immune system and have been used to develop vaccines against, for example, influenza A and Foot-and-mouth disease. Plant expression systems are rapid, scalable and safe, and are capable of providing correct post-translational modifications and reducing upstream production costs. The production of HBc-based virus-like particles in plants would thus greatly increase the efficiency of vaccine production. This review investigates the application of plant-based HBc VLP as a platform for vaccine production.

Citing Articles

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