On Aug.13,the research paper: HIV-1 Virus-Like Particles Produced by Stably Transfected Drosophila S2 Cells: a Desirable Vaccine Component., Journal of Virology, 2012 (DOI: 10.3410/ f. 717952409. 793457863), was recommended as being of special significance in its field by Luigi Buonaguro and Maria Tagliamonte from the F1000 Faculty.

Prof. Luigi Buonaguro, a senior investigator of National Cancer Institute, Naples, Italy, has been working on HIV VLP for more than 10 years. He and Dr. Maria Tagliamonte, a F1000 Associate Faculty Member, has commented on this work by saying the following, “The data reported in the manuscript describe a further strategy to produce enveloped HIV virus-like particles (VLPs) expressing the whole HIV glycoprotein on the surface. The continuous VLP production by stably transfected Drosophila S2 cells is a potentially interesting alternative to the stable transfection in insect cells described by Tagliamonte et al. Enveloped VLPs represent an invaluable vaccine approach for delivering conformational HIV antigens, which has not yet reached the stage of human clinical trials. The one described by Yang et al., among others, increases the chances of such a possibility.”

This work was done by two Ph.D. students YANG Lifei and SONG Yufeng in Professor Paul ZHOU’s laboratory at the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Professor ZHU Ping’s laboratory at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese academy of Sciences.

You can find out more about this research breakthrough at http://english.shanghaipasteur.cas.cn/press/pr/201207/t20120705_88667.htmland more about Faculty of 1000 at http://f1000.com/tour.

Recommendation by Faculty of 1000