Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals
Open Access

Abstract

Recombinant Coree1e2 Protein Expressed in Pichia pastoris Yeast a Candidate Vaccine for Hepatitis C Virus

Mehdi Fazlalipour, Hossein Keyvani, Seyed Hamid Reza Monavari and

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major health problem both in developed and developing countries and HCV infection is a global blood borne disease that affects almost 3% of the world’s population with a morbidity and mortality rates. The efficacy of hepatitis C treatment is less than satisfactory and development of an effective vaccine may be essential in the control of HCV infection. The E1 and E2 proteins, two heavily glycosylated enveloped proteins, which can elicit neutralizing antibodies against HCV infection in the host and Core, E1 and E2 proteins are the major vaccine candidates for vaccination and ELISA is one of routine testes which has been used in clinical laboratories and different studies to detect the rate of antibody in sera against HCV infection. Aim: Evolvement and gradual development of a useful vaccine can be the main point in the control and eradication of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Recent studies have reported that HCV envelope glycoproteins can induce neutralizing antibodies against antigen domain of HCV. So HCV envelope proteins are considered as the main HCV vaccine candidate. Methods: In this study, we used Pichia pastoris yeast expression system to express recombinant HCV CoreE1E2 protein, which consists of Core (269 nt-841nt) E1 (842 nt-1417nt) and E2 (1418 nt-2506nt). The Pichia pastoris can produce high level of recombinant HCV CoreE1E2 protein. The protein has glycosylation and also by codon optimization based on pichia expression system we could increase the rate of recombinant proteins. Moreover, the purified protein can efficiently induce anti-CoreE1E2 antibodies in rabbits, and also by developing homemade ELISA kit we can detect antibody of HCV Iranian patients with 1a genotype. Results: Although little is known about the mechanism of hepatitis C virion assembly, in our study the virus like particle of rCoreE1E2 with 70 nm size, were shown by Electron microscopy and have proved the self-assembly in vitro in yeast expression system. Conclusion: These findings indicate that the recombinant CoreE1E2 glycoprotein is effective in inducing neutralizing antibodies, and is an influential HCV vaccine candidate.