Baculovirus for Eukaryotic Protein Display

Reingard      Grabherr; Wolfgang      Ernst

Abstract

The baculovirus Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus is an attractive candidate for eukaryotic virus display. A variety of strategies exists to incorporate and present target proteins on the surface of infected insect cells as well as on budded virions. Native baculovirus proteins such as the major envelope protein and the capsid protein, but also foreign scaffolds such as the vesicular stomatitis virus G-1 protein or the influenza A virus hemagglutinin serve as fusion partners for surface presentation of target proteins. The purposes of surface display are manifold; efficient presentation of antigenic epitopes on budded virions serves to induce specific immune response, designed surface modifications alter the binding properties and host specificities of the baculovirus to e.g. mammalian cells and help to enhance mammalian cell transduction. Eukaryotic surface display libraries based on the baculovirus system allow selecting for specific binding proteins while providing post translational modifications. Here we describe the different possibilities and strategies to accessibly present foreign proteins and peptides on the surface of insect cells and baculoviruses, as well as the applications thereof, including vector design, cloning strategies and construction and screening of surface expression libraries.

Keywords: Baculovirus, insect cells, surface display, gp64, expression library, fluorescence activated cell sorting, VSV-G1 protein

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