Validation of a new VLP as vaccine platform

Virus-like Particles (VLPs) are nanoparticles with multiple applications in Biotechnology, among which generation of vaccines stands out. Native VLPs are used as vaccine against the viral pathogen they come from, or also as vaccine against other targets by carrying epitopes of other pathogens. This project aims to establish the proof-of concept of a new VLP that comes from the viral envelope of an insect virus, Triatoma virus (TrV-VLP). As such, this proposal has the main goal of producing a vaccine prototype against acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

To this aim, VLPs will be decorated with short peptides corresponding to the C-terminus of the oncoprotein nucleophosmin 1 (NPM1), the most frequently mutated one in AML. The peptides have been recently identified as “neoantigents”, and therefore potential targets for immunotherapeutic purpose. The vaccine prototype to be produced was already designed in silico, and consists of a modified TrV-VLP with 60 copies of the NPM1 peptide exposed to the external surface of the particle. The non-modified VLPs will be also analysed to evaluate their intrinsic immune stimulatory properties, and will be used as control for in vivo tests of our vaccine prototypes.