Immunology and Infectious Disease Commons^™

Zika Virus-Like Particle (Vlp) Based Vaccine, Héléne Boigard, Alexandra Alimova, George R. Martin, Al Katz, Paul Gottlieb, Jose M. Galarza

Publications and Research

The newly emerged mosquito-borne Zika virus poses a major public challenge due to its ability to cause significant birth defects and neurological disorders. The impact of sexual transmission is unclear but raises further concerns about virus dissemination. No specific treatment or vaccine is currently available, thus the development of a safe and effective vaccine is paramount. Here we describe a novel strategy to assemble Zika virus-like particles (VLPs) by co-expressing the structural (CprME) and non-structural (NS2B/NS3) proteins, and demonstrate their effectiveness as vaccines. VLPs are produced in a suspension culture of mammalian cells and self-assembled into particles closely resembling Zika …