VLP Construction

The formation of virus-like particles (VLPs) is a result of self-

assembly of one or several types of viral structural proteins,
such as Envelope or Capsid. The component proteins can
originate from different viruses or be recombinantly
expressed. Various systems have been used in the
successful construction of VLPs from different sources
including bacterial, yeast, insect cells, plant and
mammalian hosts. VLPs are non-infectious because they
contain no viral genetic material. VLPs include a number of
biological objects, such as uncharacterized structures with
viral morphology, empty structures of viral origin, self-
assembled gene products, etc. VLPs also provide a highly
efficient vaccine platform and a wide variety of VLPs have
Lipoparticles are specialized VLPs that incorporate high
concentrations of target membrane proteins in their
native conformation. A lipoparticle usually consists of a
retroviral core protein (Gag) and a conformational-
complex membrane protein, co-expressed, assembled
and released from host cells. Gag core proteins self-
assemble at the plasma membrane, where they bud off
and capture target membrane proteins (Figure 1). Since
the membrane proteins within lipoparticles are derived
directly from the cell surface without mechanical
disruption or detergents, the native structure and
orientation of the membrane proteins are retained.
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the lipoparticle
Lipoparticles have many advantages in isolating membrane
proteins: firstly, they are homogeneous and physically well
defined, capable of maintaining the native structures of target
membrane proteins in high densities; secondly, they can be used
to detect membrane protein interactions and therefore have wide
applications in antibody screening, phage and yeast display,
immunogens production and ligand binding assays.

Creative Biostructure uses MemPro™ virus-like particles (VLPs)

to efficiently isolate membrane proteins in the form of
lipoparticles.
 Thank you !
Excerpt from:
https://www.creative-biostructure.com/vlp-construction-40.htm