Virus-like particles are excellent inducers of the adaptive immune response of humans and are presently being used as scaffolds for the presentation of foreign peptides and antigens derived from infectious microorganisms for subunit vaccine development. The most common approaches for peptide and antigen presentation are translational fusions and chemical coupling, but some alternatives that seek to simplify the coupling process have been reported recently. In this work, an alternative platform for coupling full antigens to virus-like particles is presented. Heterodimerization motifs inserted in both Tobacco etch virus coat protein and green fluorescent protein directed the coupling process by simple mixing, and the obtained complexes were easily taken up by a macrophage cell line.
Keywords: antigen carrier; antigen uptake; heterodimerization motifs; noncovalent coupling; subunit vaccines; virus-like particles.