Yeast and Virus-like Particles: A Perfect or Imperfect Couple?

Abstract

Virus-like particles (VLPs) comprise viral structural proteins that self-assemble to form a particle similar to the native virus capsid. Since their discovery, they have been employed mainly as vaccines to prevent viral infection because they can elicit an immune response. Besides their use as vaccines, their application in cancer prevention and drug delivery is under intensive investigation. They can be produced in different systems such as bacteria, mammalian, plant, insect, and yeast cells. The main hurdle for their use is establishing a platform for production because many variables need to be considered. First, VLPs must be effective in the action for which they are constructed, depending on the nature of the VLPs. Second, the production platform must be suitable for safe and high-scale production. Yeast has been shown to be a valuable tool in VLP production, as it is able to express heterologous proteins efficiently and its manipulation is cheap and easy. Several species have been employed for this purpose. In the present review, we analyze the features of different yeast species and how they have been used to produce VLPs.