Virus-Like Particles May Mean Speedier Flu Vaccines

We've been talking a lot lately about flu vaccines. Now an anonymous reader sends us to a Technology Review piece on two human trials involving so-called virus-like particle vaccines, which promise to be much faster to churn out than traditional vaccines. (Here's a single-page version but without the useful illustration.) VLP vaccines use a protein shell, grown in either plant or insect cells, that look just like real viruses to the body's immune system but that contain no influenza RNA genetic material. A company called Medicago grows its VLPs in transgenic tobacco plants, while another called Novavax uses "immortalized" cells taken from caterpillars. Providing they pass safety muster, both techniques should be able to produce an influenza vaccine more quickly than current methods, using just the DNA of the virus.

Re:Flu !DNA

[sumthinboutjesus]

Good catch on the RNA vs. DNA. However, this would not effect how quickly a vaccine could be made with this technique nor its efficacy, as it is just training the plasma cells to recognize a folded conformation and produce antibodies to bind that 3d conformation, allowing the immune system to clear it after the virus is bound (opsonized).

Re:Bonk bonk on the head

[geekoid]

Funnny, but what the kid asks uis actually closer to how a vaccine works.

A dizzy monster might recover and go rampaging through the village. The flu vaccine is not a live virrus and as such it is like putting a wanted poster up.

production in insect cells has advantages

[airuck]

One great advantage in using insect cell lines is that they do not require serum to grow, which is both costly and open to the risk of transmitting zoonotic pathogens. Insect cells can also be more robust than mammalian cells in large scale fermentation conditions.

Re:Bonk bonk on the head

[Schickeneder]

They do put up wanted posters. They're known as major histocompatibility complexes!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex [wikipedia.org]

Re:I wonder...

[nietsch]

I am a Biologist, please allow me to answer:
Yes the DNA or RNA has a function: to make more virus. immune reactions work on anything the immune system recognises, and because the immune system is built with protein, it is mostly protein it recognises. Naked DNA or RNA in the bloodstream is quickly mopped up, so you do not need specific immunity.

Vaccination does not trigger an immediate response if you have never seen the antigen before (and if you have, the vaccination is needless and poses a risk). It takes some time to mount an immune response, about as long as 'the flu' lasts. once this response is established, your immune system 'remembers' it. A next exposure to the antigen will see a much quicker response to the antigen, and the second exposure will also reinforce your long term immunity. Read up on immunity if you still don't trust it, this is basically just how it works.

The flu virus evolves a new shell almost every season, exactly because the immune system reacts on its outer envelope. 'They' have no system to switch between different env genes, as you'd need a lot of overhead for that. Having a lot of mutations between each generation and letting basic evolution take its course works much more efficiently.