Project Title: Development of plant virus-based bacterial vaccine production platforms

Project No: lzp-2019/1-0131

Period: 1 January 2020 – 31 December 2022

Project costs: 300 000.00 EUR

Principle Investigator: Dr. biol. Andris Zeltiņš

Summary

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are nanometer-sized structures of viral structural proteins that can be used to create new nanomaterials, including vaccines. VLPs derived from plant viruses are highly immunogenic, non-infectious and have no pre-existing immunity in mammals. Plant VLP can be obtained artificially by cloning and expressing the structural genes of plant viruses in microorganism cells.

The aim of the project is to obtain new plant VLP based vaccine production platforms that are simple and compatible with technology transfer for industrial production. The main activities of the project are (1) Construction of VLP-antigen expression systems. Antigen-containing VLPs will be obtained through genetic fusions; alternatively, by binding the modified antigens to the surface of VLPs by physical and chemical methods; (2) purification and characterization of antigen-containing VLPs; (3) Immunization experiments with experimental VLPs of different designs, obtaining data on the immunostimulatory properties of experimental vaccines. (4) Using an animal model for cat allergy, the neutralizing properties of induced antibodies against allergenic agents will be investigated in mice experiments.

The main result of the project is a new, universal, simple laboratory VLP platform for the development of human and veterinary vaccines. The research results will be summarized in at least 2 scientific publications in journals with citation index above 50% of the average in the field.

Information published 02.01.2020.