Virus like particles as a platform for cancer vaccine development

Abstract

Cancers have killed millions of people in human history and are still posing a serious health problem worldwide. Therefore, there is an urgent need for developing preventive and therapeutic cancer vaccines. Among various cancer vaccine development platforms, virus-like particles (VLPs) offer several advantages. VLPs are multimeric nanostructures with morphology resembling that of native viruses and are mainly composed of surface structural proteins of viruses but are devoid of viral genetic materials rendering them neither infective nor replicative. In addition, they can be engineered to display multiple, highly ordered heterologous epitopes or peptides in order to optimize the antigenicity and immunogenicity of the displayed entities. Like native viruses, specific epitopes displayed on VLPs can be taken up, processed, and presented by antigen-presenting cells to elicit potent specific humoral and cell-mediated immune responses. Several studies also indicated that VLPs could overcome the immunosuppressive state of the tumor microenvironment and break self-tolerance to elicit strong cytotoxic lymphocyte activity, which is crucial for both virus clearance and destruction of cancerous cells. Collectively, these unique characteristics of VLPs make them optimal cancer vaccine candidates. This review discusses current progress in the development of VLP-based cancer vaccines and some potential drawbacks of VLPs in cancer vaccine development. Extracellular vesicles with close resembling to viral particles are also discussed and compared with VLPs as a platform in cancer vaccine developments.

Artificially designed hepatitis B virus core particles composed of multiple epitopes of type A and O foot‐and‐mouth disease virus as a bivalent vaccine candidate

“…The cellular immune response plays an important role after viral infection; CD4+ T cells provide auxiliary signals for the proliferation and differentiation of B cells, whereas CD8+ T cells function as cytotoxic killer cells and can regulate the innate immune response . In particular, the effector function of CD4+ T cells primarily includes Th1 and Th2‐specific responses.…”

“…In addition, VLPs, as epitope carrier platforms, have been widely used in epitope‐based vaccine research. The hepatitis B virus core antigen (HBcAg) is a type of nanoparticle that can display exogenous epitopes and be recognized by antigen‐presenting cells more efficiently . Generally, inserting an exogenous epitope into the major immunogenic region (MIR; amino acids 78–82 of HBcAg) of HBc can enhance the immunogenicity of an epitope and does not affect HBc self‐assembly into VLPs .…”

“…The hepatitis B virus core antigen (HBcAg) is a type of nanoparticle that can display exogenous epitopes and be recognized by antigen-presenting cells more efficiently. 23 Generally, inserting an exogenous epitope into the major immunogenic region (MIR; amino acids 78-82 of HBcAg) of HBc can enhance the immunogenicity of an epitope and does not affect HBc self-assembly into VLPs. 24 Therefore, as a carrier of exogenous epitopes, HBc has been widely used in the study of epitope vaccines against many pathogens.…”

High‐throughput screening of aqueous biphasic systems with ionic liquids as additives for extraction and purification of enveloped virus‐like particles

“…Virus‐like particles (VLPs) are multimeric nanostructures resembling structural proteins of the virus. However, contrary to the virus, they lack genetic material . Therefore, these particles are not able to self‐replicate, but still possess functional viral proteins, which enable them to penetrate and efficiently enter the cells .…”

“…However, contrary to the virus, they lack genetic material. 1 Therefore, these particles are not able to self-replicate, but still possess functional viral proteins, which enable them to penetrate and efficiently enter the cells. 2 Because of these properties, VLPs have been largely used for biotechnological applications, such as VLP-based vaccination or cancer therapy.…”