Olena Brovko
Medical and Prophylaxis Business, Kharkiv State Medical University, 2003
Presentation of HBV and HCV proteins on HBV Capsid-like Particles: creation of new preventive or therapeutic vaccines.
Approximately 500 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis B (HBV) and hepatitis C (HCV) virus worldwide. HBV prophylactic vaccines existing but they are effective in 85-90 % of patients and have no therapeutic potential in chronically infected individuals. There is still no vaccine against HCV available; standard treatment cures 50%-75% of patients and is associated with severe side effects. The situation emphasizes the need for novel prophylactic and especially therapeutic approaches. One such concept is creation of effective vaccine based on combination of two or more viral antigens and their presentation on multi-epitope particulate carriers, such as the HBV nucleocapsid (HBcAg). HBV capsid-like particles (CLPs) induce strong, specific, and protective immune response against foreign sequences, most effectively if they are inserted in the central located, surface exposed c/e1-loop. For HBV the large HBV surface protein preS1 and preS2 domains are excellent display candidates; they elicit virus-neutralizing and protective antibodies which can overcome non-responsiveness to the currently available vaccine. In case of HCV the HCV glycoprotein E1 is an attractive candidate since E1 is incorporated into HCV virions and is involved in receptor binding and internalization. The aim of the project is generation of HBV-CLPs presenting different variants of the large HBV surface protein domains and HBV-CLPs displaying the HCV surface proteins E1 as novel therapeutic or prophylactic vaccines. 1st Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Michael Roggendorf Institute: Telephone: +49 (0)201 - 723 - 2875 |