Developing effective vaccines is of vital importance for protecting public health by preventing potential pandemics or by controlling ongoing ones. However, there is a threshold of rapidly design and develop effective vaccines to prevent virus infection. Inspired by the natural budding processes associated with cell membrane scission when enveloped viruses invade host cells and replicate themselves, a similar strategy was applied to achieve virus-mimetic nanovesicles (VMVs). This strategy loaded genetically engineered viral antigens onto mammalian cell membranes to produce antigen-loaded vesicles, and then used surfactants to optimize their size and stability. The VMVs resemble natural viruses in size, shape and specific immune function and have protein antigens in the correct conformation on their exterior to elicit robust immunogenicity. This was confirmed in animal models against influenza A (H1N1) virus, demonstrating that VMVs could be a versatile platform for vaccine development.
Keywords: antigen delivery system; immunogenicity; membrane vesicle; vaccine; virus-like particle.