Authors: Oliver P Windram Brandon Weber Mohamed A Jaffer Edward P Rybicki Dionne N Shepherd Arvind Varsani
Publish Date: 2008/01/04
Volume: 153, Issue: 3, Pages: 585-589
Abstract
Development of vaccine strategies against human papillomavirus HPV which causes cervical cancer is a priority We investigated the use of viruslike particles VLPs of the most prevalent type HPV16 as carriers of foreign proteins Green fluorescent protein GFP was fused to the N or C terminus of both L1 and L2 with L2 chimeras being coexpressed with native L1 Purified chimaeric VLPs were comparable in size ∼55 nm to native HPV VLPs Conformationspecific monoclonal antibodies Mabs bound to the VLPs thereby indicating that they possibly retain their antigenicity In addition all of the VLPs encapsidated DNA in the range of 6–8 kbWe would like thank to Dr Neil Christensen for providing the monoclonal antibodies used in this study This research was funded by the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation of South Africa grant 04/25 and the University of Cape Town start up grant AV is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York
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