Engineering PCV2’s VLP as a new and adaptable biotechnological platform for vaccine development

OLIVERO, N.; FRIGINI, EZEQUIEL N.; RAMOS, N.; CARRIÓN, F.; ARBIZA, L.; PRITSCH, O.; PANTANO, S.; ORTEGA, C.

Santa Fe

Simposio; IX SIMPOSIO LATINOAMERICANO DE TECNOLOGÍA DE CULTIVOS CELULARES 2022; 2022

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) is an important pathogen in swine herds, causing severe economic losses to the pig industry worldwide. Despite the availability of vaccines, the virus infects persistently more than 12% of the pigs globally. Since neutralizing antibodies recognize structural epitopes on the virions' surface, traditional immunization strategies using linear epitopes show low efficacy. Moreover, new PCVs types 3 and 4 have been recently reported. PCV4 is, so far, restricted to China, but its capability of infecting other livestock species raises serious concern. Hence, it is urgently necessary to potentiate our armamentarium with new tools for diagnosis and prevention. We have implemented a high-yield protocol to produce PCV2's virus-like particles (VLPs) based on Expi cells technology. In parallel, we used cutting-edge computational methods developed by us to simulate and predict point mutations stabilizing the assembly of VLPs without altering their external surface.We can create super-stabilized VLPs to use them as stiff molecular scaffolds to introduce arbitrarymodifications, mimicking simply and efficiently the outer surface of emergent variants. Hence, thistechnology could provide an innovative platform for vaccine development.