Overexpression and purification and particle self-assembly of a recombinant hepatitis B virus core derived anti-tumor protein from Escherichia coli

摘要

Hepatitis B virus core (HBc) particles represent useful tools for display foreign epitopes. But little strategy has been reported to date on anti-tumor applicability of the HBc particle as carrier. Here we report high expression and purification of HBc-derived protein and exploit its use as a potential tumor vaccine carrier. The gene encoding for ligand oligopeptides (LOPs) for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) was internally inserted into the HBc carrier by genetic engineering and then ligated into the pET-28a expression vector, designated HBc-E5. The separation effectiveness was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy, revealing the presence of spherical particles. These results illustrated the potential application of HBc particles as the anti-tumor vaccine carrier.