Affinity-purified sHBsAg-based virus-like particles as a platform for foreign mRNA binding

IF 2.4 3区医学 Q3 VIROLOGY

Virology Pub Date : 2025-08-11 DOI:10.1016/j.virol.2025.110651

Karolina Gackowska , Martyna Krejmer-Rabalska , Karolina Drazkowska , Jacek Jemielity , Ewelina Krol , Boguslaw Szewczyk

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Virus-like particles (VLPs) have long been utilized as immunogens to prevent infectious diseases. Particles derived from the small surface proteins of the hepatitis B virus (sHBsAg) can self-assemble into small, highly immunogenic structures and have been used in human vaccination since the 1980s. Various chimeric sHBsAg VLPs retain their self-assembly ability, even when significant sequence alterations, such as fusions or substitutions, are introduced. This makes them an attractive experimental model and vaccine platform for delivering and presenting foreign epitopes. In the present study, motifs from the hepatitis B virus (HBV) core protein (HBcAg) were introduced into the cytosolic loops of sHBsAg to explore whether these VLPs could acquire the ability to pack mRNA. With one exception, the introduced changes for mRNA binding did not affect ability for self-assemble. A Twin-Strep-tag was added to the N-terminus for more efficient and specific purification. With the exception of one modification, the changes made to allow for mRNA binding did not affect the self-assembly capability of sHBsAg. The recombinant proteins successfully bound mRNAs from various sources.

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亲和纯化的基于shbsag的病毒样颗粒作为外源mRNA结合的平台

病毒样颗粒（vlp）长期以来一直被用作预防传染病的免疫原。乙型肝炎病毒（sHBsAg）表面小蛋白衍生的颗粒可以自组装成小的、高度免疫原性的结构，自20世纪80年代以来已用于人类疫苗接种。各种嵌合sHBsAg VLPs即使在引入重大的序列改变（如融合或取代）时也能保持其自组装能力。这使它们成为递送和呈递外源表位的有吸引力的实验模型和疫苗平台。在本研究中，我们将乙型肝炎病毒（HBV）核心蛋白（HBcAg）的基序引入sHBsAg的细胞质环中，以探索这些VLPs是否能够获得包装mRNA的能力。除了一个例外，引入的mRNA结合改变不影响自组装能力。在n端添加了twin - strep标签，以提高效率和特异性。除了一个修饰外，允许mRNA结合的改变不影响sHBsAg的自组装能力。重组蛋白成功地结合了来自不同来源的mrna。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Virology 医学-病毒学

CiteScore

6.00

自引率

0.00%

发文量

157

审稿时长

50 days

期刊介绍： Launched in 1955, Virology is a broad and inclusive journal that welcomes submissions on all aspects of virology including plant, animal, microbial and human viruses. The journal publishes basic research as well as pre-clinical and clinical studies of vaccines, anti-viral drugs and their development, anti-viral therapies, and computational studies of virus infections. Any submission that is of broad interest to the community of virologists/vaccinologists and reporting scientifically accurate and valuable research will be considered for publication, including negative findings and multidisciplinary work.Virology is open to reviews, research manuscripts, short communication, registered reports as well as follow-up manuscripts.