ABSTRACT
The virus-like particles, or VLPs, are nanodimensional structures that are built from one or several viral structural constituents synthesized in efficient expression systems, such as bacteria, yeast, or eukaryotic cell culture. The VLPs are closely related by their three-dimensional architecture and immunochemical characteristics to naturally occurring viral structures, but they do not contain potentially infectious genes or genomes. The chimeric VLPs are structures, where the original structural proteins are covalently modified by the addition or substitution of foreign polypeptide stretches with desired functional properties, such as immunological epitopes, or cell-targeting, or encapsidation signals. This chapter is dedicated to the main principles of the generation of the chimeric VLPs. The data that demonstrate the ability of the chimeric VLPs to tolerate different organic (peptides, oligonucleotides, and carbohydrates) and inorganic (metal ions) compounds either chemically coupled or non-covalently added to the outer and/or inner surfaces of the chimeric VLPs are presented. The chimeric VLPs constructed by the genetic fusion in the case of the fr, MS2, Qβ, PP7, GA, and AP205 VLPs are compared with the data on the functionalization and chemical coupling in the case of the Qβ and MS2 VLPs, as well by the plug-and-display of the AP205 VLPs.
