{"doi":"10.1101/2022.04.22.489148","title":"VelcroVax: a ‘bolt-on’ vaccine platform technology improves antibody titres against a viral glycoprotein in mice","abstract":"Abstract Having varied approaches to the design and manufacture of vaccines is critical in being able to respond to worldwide needs and to newly emerging pathogens. Virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines form the basis of two of the most successful licensed vaccines (against hepatitis B virus (HBV) and human papillomavirus). They are produced by recombinant expression of viral structural proteins, which self-assemble into immunogenic nanoparticles. VLPs can also be modified to present unrelated antigens, and here we describe a universal ‘bolt-on’ vaccine platform (termed VelcroVax) where the capturing VLP and the target antigen (hapten) are produced separately. We utilise a modified HBV core (HBcAg) VLP, with surface expression of a high-affinity binding sequence (Affimer) directed against a SUMO tag and use this to capture SUMO-tagged gp1 glycoprotein from the arenavirus, Junín virus (JUNV). Using this model system, we have solved high-resolution structures of VelcroVax VLPs, and shown that the VelcroVax-JUNV gp1 complex induces superior humoral immune responses compared to the non-complexed viral protein. We propose that this system could be modified to present a range of haptens and therefore form the foundation of future rapid-response vaccination strategies.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2022,"id":308636,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9582,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":954263,"name":"Keith Grehan","orcid":"0000-0003-3976-756X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":925606,"name":"Joseph S. Snowden","orcid":"0000-0001-7857-0634","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231295,"name":"Mark Hassall","orcid":"0000-0002-6180-7954","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1003858,"name":"Jehad Alzahrani","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106083,"name":"Guido C. Paesen","orcid":"0000-0003-2373-2645","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1003445,"name":"Lee Sherry","orcid":"0000-0002-4367-772X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1003446,"name":"Connor Hayward","orcid":"0000-0002-8440-770X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":257152,"name":"Amy L. Roe","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1003859,"name":"Sam L. Stephen","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":979938,"name":"Darren C. Tomlinson","orcid":"0000-0003-4134-7484","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1003447,"name":"Antra Zeltina","orcid":"0000-0002-5485-5480","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":270800,"name":"Katie J. Doores","orcid":"0000-0002-5507-1725","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298033,"name":"Neil A. Ranson","orcid":"0000-0002-3640-5275","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1003448,"name":"Martin Stacey","orcid":"0000-0003-3502-5542","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1003449,"name":"Mark Page","orcid":"0000-0002-8664-133X","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1003450,"name":"Nicola J. Rose","orcid":"0000-0003-1102-5062","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":230081,"name":"Thomas A. Bowden","orcid":"0000-0002-8066-8785","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":318736,"name":"David J. Rowlands","orcid":"0000-0002-4201-7754","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":925608,"name":"Nicola J. Stonehouse","orcid":"0000-0003-1146-5519","position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":925605,"name":"Natalie J. Kingston","orcid":"0000-0001-7109-6757","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":60,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:33:07.132912Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}