A potential gene delivery strategy using BK virus.

Area of Science:

• Virology
• Molecular Biology
• Biotechnology

Background:

• Recombinant BK virus (rBKV) can express polypeptides via its native late promoter.
• This characteristic makes rBKV a valuable reporter system for infecting human cells.

Purpose of the Study:

• To engineer a recombinant BK virus (rBKV) capable of expressing foreign antigens.
• To evaluate the functionality of the BKV late promoter in driving foreign gene expression.
• To assess the potential of rBKV as a platform for vaccine and gene therapy applications.

Main Methods:

• Construction of rBKV vectors encoding Renilla luciferase (Rluc) under the BKV late promoter.
• Transfection of Vero-76 and Cos-1 cells with the rBKV-Rluc construct.
• Introduction of a human IL2 secretion peptide (IL2 SP) to facilitate extracellular protein secretion.

Main Results:

• Strong Rluc activity was detected in transfected cells, confirming functional enzyme production driven by the native BKV late promoter.
• A modified construct (rBKV-IL2SP-Rluc-myc-2A-VP2) successfully secreted the IL2SP-Rluc-myc fusion protein into the culture medium.
• Demonstrated the successful generation of an infectious rBKV expressing foreign antigens.

Conclusions:

• An infectious rBKV system capable of expressing foreign antigens has been successfully developed.
• This engineered rBKV platform holds promise for applications in antiviral drug screening, vaccine development, and gene delivery for immunotherapy and cell transduction.