A virus-like particle vaccine for hepatitis C virus.

目的是评估一种病毒样颗粒（VLP）疫苗对丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）的有效性。澳大利亚每年约有1万人感染丙型肝炎病毒，其中约8000人将发展为持续性感染。因此，目前澳大利亚有15 -20万HCV携带者，全球有5亿。这些人是传染源。尽管主要传播途径是血液和血液制品，但在血库中开展丙型肝炎病毒筛查降低了从这一来源感染的风险。然而，许多静脉注射吸毒者共用针头，尽管这种情况并不常见，但众所周知，病毒会传播给携带者的配偶。此外，约20%的丙型肝炎病毒携带者没有公认的危险因素，目前尚不清楚这些人是如何被感染的。病毒在医院住院病人和门诊病人之间的传播也得到了很好的认识，因此，显然迫切需要疫苗。然而，由于丙肝病毒不能在实验室中培养，因此不可能开发出传统的疫苗；此外，由于一部分从丙型肝炎病毒感染中康复的患者没有特异性免疫力，因此可能再次感染，因此疫苗的设计存在许多问题。因此，与旨在产生细胞免疫反应的疫苗相比，以开发中和抗体为基础的疫苗不太可能有效。VLPs可诱导有效的细胞免疫应答，我们计划制备由牛乳头瘤病毒（BPV） L1蛋白组成的VLPs，该L1蛋白与高免疫原性HCV核心蛋白或一系列蛋白片段（多肽）融合。实验小鼠将接种这些VLP并测量细胞免疫反应。然后将对丙型肝炎病毒携带者接种疫苗，以确保产品的安全性和免疫功效。这将进行血清学和临床评估。

The aim is to evaluate the efficiency of a virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine for hepatitis C virus (HCV). HCV infects about 10,000 people every year in Australia and approximately 8, 000 of these will develop persistent infection. As a result, there are currently 150,000-200,000 HCV carriers in Australia and 500 million worldwide. These individuals represent a source of infection. Although the major route for transmission is blood and blood products, the advent of HCV screening in the blood banks has reduced the risk of infection from this source. However, many intravenous drug users (IVD) share needles and although it is not common, transmission to spouses of carriers is well recognised. In addition, approximately 20% of HCV carriers have no recognised risk factor and it is unclear how these individuals became infected. Transmission of the virus to hospital inpatients and outpatients is also well recognised and as a result, it is clear that a vaccine is urgently required. However, as HCV cannot be cultured in the laboratory, it is impossible to develop a traditional vaccine; furthermore, because a proportion of patients who recover from HCV infection have no specific immunity and thus can be re-infected, the design of a vaccine presents a number of problems. Thus a vaccine which is based on the development of neutralising antibody is unlikely to be effective, in contrast to a vaccine which is designed to generate a cellular immune response. VLPs induce an effective cellular immune response and we plan to make VLPs composed of the L1 protein of bovine papillomavirus (BPV) which is fused to the highly immunogenic HCV core protein or to a string of protein segments (polytope). Laboratory mice will be vaccinated with these VLP and the cellular immune response measured. The vaccine will then be administered to HCV carriers to ensure the safety and the immunological efficacy of the product. This will be assessed serologically and clinically.