Newcastle disease virus-like particles: preparation, purification, quantification, and incorporation of foreign glycoproteins.

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are large particles, the size of viruses, composed of repeating structures that mimic those of infectious virus. Since their structures are similar to that of viruses, they have been used to study the mechanisms of virus assembly. They are also in development for delivery of molecules to cells and in studies of the immunogenicity of particle-associated antigens. However, they have been most widely used for development of vaccines and vaccine candidates. VLPs can form upon the expression of the structural proteins of many different viruses. This chapter describes the generation and purification of VLPs formed with the structural proteins, M, NP, F, and HN proteins, of Newcastle disease virus (NDV). Newcastle disease virus-like particles (ND VLPs) have also been developed as a platform for assembly into VLPs of glycoproteins from other viruses. This chapter describes the methods for this use of ND VLPs.