Recombinant HEV-Like Particles as a Potential Vaccine

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections represent a major health problem in developing countries whereepidemics primarily affect young to middle-age adults. Although HEV does not lead to chronic hepatitisor cirrhosis, the infection is severe enough to warrant prevention. We will demonstrate that the capsidprotein of HEV can self-assemble into particles that are morphologically similar to native HEV virions.We propose that self-assembled virus-like particles expressed from the HEV caps id protein wouldpreserve conformational neutralizing epitopes and, therefore, be an ideal vaccine candidate for long-termprotective immunity. The putative capsid protein will be expressed in several expression systems alongwith other putative structural proteins of the virus. Protein products will be inspected for theself-assembling of virus-like particles. Purified virus-like particles will then be tested for antigenicity tovalidate the conservation of immunologically important epitopes.