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Review
. 2021 Feb 28:29:e00605.
doi: 10.1016/j.btre.2021.e00605. eCollection 2021 Mar.

Hepatitis B core-based virus-like particles: A platform for vaccine development in plants

Maryam Moradi Vahdat  1 , Farshad Hemmati  2 , Abozar Ghorbani  2 , Daria Rutkowska  3 , Alireza Afsharifar  2 , Mohammad Hadi Eskandari  4 , Nahid Rezaei  5 , Ali Niazi  1
Affiliations
Review

Hepatitis B core-based virus-like particles: A platform for vaccine development in plants

Maryam Moradi Vahdat et al. Biotechnol Rep (Amst). .

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.

Keywords: Hepatitis B core; Plant expression system; VLP-based vaccine; Virus-like particle.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The research reported here did not involve experimentation with human participants or animals.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Illustration of the Tandem Core technology concept. The image shows two HBcAg genetically fused to one another via a flexible linker. MIR: Major immunodominant region.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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