Multi-Antigenic Virus-like Particle of SARS CoV-2 produced in Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a vaccine candidate

Arora, Kajal; Rastogi, Ruchir; Arora, Nupur Mehrotra; Parashar, Deepak; Paliwal, Jeny; Naqvi, Aelia; Srivastava, Apoorva; Singh, Sudhir Kumar; Kalyanaraman, Sriganesh; Potdar, Swaroop; Kumar, Devanand; Arya, Vidya Bhushan; Bansal, Sarthi; Rautray, Satabdi; Singh, Indrajeet; Fengade, Pankaj Surendra; Kumar, Bibekanand; Kundu, Prabuddha Kumar

Spike, Envelope and Membrane proteins from the SARS CoV-2 virus surface coat are important vaccine targets. We hereby report recombinant co-expression of the three proteins (Spike, Envelope and Membrane) in a engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae platform (D-Crypt™) and their self-assembly as Virus-like particle (VLP). This design as a multi-antigenic VLP for SARS CoV-2 has the potential to be a scalable vaccine candidate. The VLP is confirmed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images of the SARS CoV-2, along with supportive HPLC, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and allied analytical data. The images clearly outline the presence of a “Corona” like morphology, and uniform size distribution.