Effective chikungunya virus-like particle vaccine produced in insect cells.

The emerging arthritogenic, mosquito-borne chikungunya virus (CHIKV) causes severe disease in humans and represents a serious public health threat in countries where Aedes spp mosquitoes are present. This study describes for the first time the successful production of CHIKV virus-like particles (VLP...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Main Authors: Stefan W Metz, Joy Gardner, Corinne Geertsema, Thuy T Le, Lucas Goh, Just M Vlak, Andreas Suhrbier, Gorben P Pijlman
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013
Subjects:
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
RC955-962
Public aspects of medicine
RA1-1270
Arctic
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002124
https://doaj.org/article/1cb27c031e31450cabba3c0ff80f2227
Description
Summary:The emerging arthritogenic, mosquito-borne chikungunya virus (CHIKV) causes severe disease in humans and represents a serious public health threat in countries where Aedes spp mosquitoes are present. This study describes for the first time the successful production of CHIKV virus-like particles (VLPs) in insect cells using recombinant baculoviruses. This well-established expression system is rapidly scalable to volumes required for epidemic responses and proved well suited for processing of CHIKV glycoproteins and production of enveloped VLPs. Herein we show that a single immunization with 1 µg of non-adjuvanted CHIKV VLPs induced high titer neutralizing antibody responses and provided complete protection against viraemia and joint inflammation upon challenge with the Réunion Island CHIKV strain in an adult wild-type mouse model of CHIKV disease. CHIKV VLPs produced in insect cells using recombinant baculoviruses thus represents as a new, safe, non-replicating and effective vaccine candidate against CHIKV infections.

Similar Items