%0 Journal Article
%T Chimeric Hepatitis B core antigen virus-like particles displaying the envelope domain III of dengue virus type 2
%A Upasana Arora
%A Poornima Tyagi
%A Sathyamangalam Swaminathan
%A Navin Khanna
%J Journal of Nanobiotechnology
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1477-3155-10-30
%X We designed a synthetic gene construct encoding HBcAg containing an EDIII insert in its c/e1 loop. The fusion antigen HBcAg-EDIII-2 was expressed in E. coli, purified to near homogeneity using Ni+2 affinity chromatography and demonstrated to assemble into discrete 35¨C40£¿nm VLPs by electron microscopy. Competitive ELISA analyses showed that the EDIII-2 moieties of the VLPs are accessible to anti-EDIII-2-specific monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, suggesting that they are surface-displayed. The VLPs were highly immunogenic eliciting high titer anti-EDIII-2 antibodies that were able to recognize, bind and neutralize infectious DENV based on ELISA, immunofluorescence and virus-neutralization assays.This work demonstrates that HBcAg-derived nanoparticles can serve as a useful platform for the display of DENV EDIII. The EDIII-displaying nanoparticles may have potential applications in diagnostics/vaccines for dengue.
%U http://www.jnanobiotechnology.com/content/10/1/30/abstract