Application of Baculovirus Expression Vector system (BEV) for COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics: a review

The baculovirus expression vector system has been developed for expressing a wide range of proteins, including enzymes, glycoproteins, recombinant viruses, and vaccines. The availability of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence has enabled the synthesis of SARS-CoV2 proteins in a baculovirus-insect cell platform for various applications. The most cloned SARS-CoV-2 protein is the spike protein, which plays a critical role in SARS-CoV-2 infection. It is available in its whole length or as subunits like S1 or the receptor-binding domain (RBD). Non-structural proteins (Nsps), another recombinant SARS-CoV-2 protein generated by the baculovirus expression vector system (BEV), are used in the identification of new medications or the repurposing of existing therapies for the treatment of COVID-19. Non-SARS-CoV-2 proteins generated by BEV for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis or treatment include moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase (MMLVRT), angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), therapeutic proteins, and recombinant antibodies. The recombinant proteins were modified to boost the yield or to stabilize the protein.

This review covers the wide application of the recombinant protein produced using the baculovirus expression technology for COVID-19 research. A lot of improvements have been made to produce functional proteins with high yields. However, there is still room for improvement and there are parts of this field of research that have not been investigated yet.