Viral immunology
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Influenza virus-like particles (VLPs) are effective vaccines against influenza infection, which can be produced either in insect cells by recombinant baculovirus (BV) infection or in mammalian cells by DNA plasmid transfection. However, VLPs produced from baculovirus/insect cells are difficult to purify due to baculovirus contamination; VLPs produced by plasmid transfection are limited by scale-up capability. In this study, a BacMam BV, in which three CMV-promoters drive the hemagglutinin, neuraminidase, and matrix of influenza virus was constructed. ⋯ This finding is particularly significant for producing easily purified VLPs. The BacMam system is an alternative strategy for VLP production, which is easy to scale up and purify. Besides, BacMam BV can be used as a gene delivery vector to produce VLPs in vivo, to stimulate immune responses.