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Virus-like particles could speed response to pandemicsA method of producing vaccines from insect cells instead of chickeneggs may allow increased speed and safety in responding to pandemics,according to researchers. The technique avoids problems such ascontamination, slow growth of isolates, and allergies to egg proteins,one researcher said.

“Pandemic influenza vaccines can theoretically be produced withinweeks after the first isolation of the RNA sequence of a new emerginginfluenza strain,” said Florian Krammer, MSc, a researcher at theVienna Institute of BioTechnology, part of the University of NaturalResources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria. Dr. Krammer isfirst author of a paper describing the technique (Krammer F, NakowitschS, Messner P, et al. [Published online ahead of print December 29,2009.] Biotechnol J).

Krammer and colleagues worked under senior author and leadresearcher Reingard Grabherr, PhD, to produce H1N1 influenzarecombinant virus-like particles (VLPs) in insect cells. They showedthat these VLPs, which lack viral nucleic acid, induced an immuneresponse in mice.

Dr. Krammer outlined potential advantages of VLP vaccine production in an e-mail to PFQ.He said VLP vaccines bypass disadvantages of egg-produced flu vaccinessuch as yield problems, high contamination risk, a limited specificpathogen-free egg supply in case of a pandemic, the need for processupscale, and problems with allergies to egg proteins.

Another advantage of VLPs is the absence of any viral geneticinformation. “Therefore, VLPs are completely replication-deficient andnoninfectious,” he said. “This makes their application in the humanpopulation very safe.”