VIRUS LIKE PARTICLES OF THE JUNIN VIRUS Z PROTEIN (JUNV Z-VLPS) AS A BIOLOGICAL VEHICLE OF ANTIGENS AND VACCINE ADJUVANTS.

AGUSTÍN F. DE GANZÓ; MERCEDES ALEMÁN; CRISTINA SILVIA BORIO; ALEJANDRA DUARTE; MERCEDES PASTORINI; SANDRA GOÑI

Mar del Plata

Congreso; Reunión de las sociedades SAI -SAIC- SAFIS 2018; 2018

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are non-genomic nanostructures assembledfrom viral structural proteins. VLPs are incapable of infection orself-replicate due to the lack of genome yet their protein retain theantigenicity capable of induce cellular and human immune responseswhich makes VLPs potential viral-based vaccines. Currently, severallicensed VLP vaccines are already being used against humanand zoonotic pathogens.Arenavirus matrix Z protein plays an important role in virus buddingand is able to generate enveloped virus-like-particles (Z-VLPs) inabsence of any other viral proteins. We previously demonstratedthat Z-VLP induce maturation of dendritic cells (DCs) derived frombone marrow balb/c mice testified by a boost of surface markersMHC class II and CD86 levels.The antigen presentations cells (APCs), DCs and macrophages, arefound throughout the body as sentinels. They main aim of thesecells is to continuously search for pathogens and present differentantigens to activate the induction of an adaptive immune response.We hypothesized that Z-VLPs could be efficient immunogens andexcellent tools for vaccine purposes due to the fact that VLPs maypromote adaptive immune response through the activation of APCs.In this work we study the expression of different surface markersin different subset of DCs treated with Z-VLP for 24 h. We demonstratedan increased level of CD40 (p