Effect of Junín Z protein of virus-like-particles (Z-VLPs) on dendritic cell (DCs) maduration

MERCEDES PASTORINI; JULIETA ALCAIN; MERCEDES ALEMAN; ALEJANDRA DUARTE; AGUSTÍN DE GANZÓ; SANDRA GOÑI; DANIELA MONTAGNA; CRISTINA SILVIA BORIO

Aachen

Simposio; 15th International Symposium on Dendritic Cells; 2018

EFIS

Arenavirus matrix protein Z plays an important role in virus budding and is able to generate envelopedvirus-like-particles (VLPs) in absence of any other viral proteins. These genome-free Z-VLPs are oftenmorphologically similar to the live virus from which they are derived and are highly immunogenic. VLPsare capable of activating cells involved in both innate and adaptive immunity, ultimately generatingboth humoral and cell-mediated immunity. Interestingly, targeting immature dendritic cells (DCs) withVLPs induced maturation and stimulation of these cells. Mature DCs are a key antigen-presenting cellpopulation that transports antigen to the peripheral lymph nodes to initiate CD4+ and CD8+ T cellresponses. VLPs appear to be useful to deliver antigens to vaccinate against viral infections dissectingviral immunobiology. We hypothesized that this Z-VLP could be a good immunogen and excellenttools for vaccine purposes. In this work we tested the capability of Z-VLPs to induce maturation andfunction of DCs, because DCs represent a critical link between innate and adaptive immuneresponses and play a crucial role in vaccine immunogenicity. Punctually we evaluate theimmunogenicity of Junín Z protein to produce VLPs carrying the green fluorescent protein (eGFP), asa model antigen. We generated DCs from murine bone marrow cells and exposed them to thismolecule, LPS, or GFP for 24 h. Z-VLP-exposed DCs showed signs of maturation similar to responsesinduced by LPS. Cell-surface expression of CD86 (p